Body size, demography and foraging in a socially plastic sweat bee: a common garden experiment
Body size, demography and foraging in a socially plastic sweat bee: a common garden experiment
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-012-1322-7
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发表时间：
2012-05-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Bridge, Catherine
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Field, Jeremy;Paxton, Robert;Bridge, Catherine
表型可塑性可能会演变时，条件变化的时间或空间上足够小的规模。可塑性被认为在进化转型的早期阶段起着核心作用，包括非社会性和社会性之间的重大转变。汗蜂Halictus rubicundus在这方面特别感兴趣，因为它在不列颠群岛具有社会可塑性：巢是社会性的或非社会性的，取决于环境。然而，社会性包括一套复杂的相互关联的特征。为了进一步研究H. rubicundus，我们测量了在北方地点（其中巢是非社会性的）和在南方地点（其中巢可以是社会性的）潜在地与社会表型不可或缺的性状。我们发现，在非社会网站的foundresses较小，产生的后代的大小更类似于自己，开始筑巢后，并需要更长的时间来产生他们的第一个女性后代。他们在当天早些时候开始供应，早些时候完成，并收集更多的花粉。共同的花园实验表明，这些差异主要代表可塑性，如预期的性状参与整体塑料社会表型，只有有限的证据固定的遗传差异觅食。越冬期间的条件并没有对一个foundress随后的行为产生重大影响。
Phenotypic plasticity may evolve when conditions vary temporally or spatially on a small enough scale. Plasticity is thought to play a central role in the early stages of evolutionary transitions, including major transitions such as those between non-sociality and sociality. The sweat bee Halictus rubicundus is of special interest in this respect, because it is socially plastic in the British Isles: Nests are social or non-social depending on the environment. However, sociality comprises a complex suite of inter-related traits. To further investigate social plasticity in H. rubicundus, we measured traits that are potentially integral to social phenotype at a northern site, where nests are non-social, and a southern site where nests can be social. We found that foundresses at non-social sites were smaller, produced offspring of a size more similar to themselves, initiated nesting later, and took longer to produce their first female offspring. They began provisioning earlier in the day, finished earlier, and collected more pollen loads. Common garden experiments suggested that these differences represent mainly plasticity, as expected for traits involved in the overall plastic social phenotype, with only limited evidence for fixed genetic differences in foraging. Conditions during overwintering did not have major effects on a foundress' subsequent behaviour.