Social competition but not subfertility leads to a division of labour in the facultatively social sweat bee Megalopta genalis (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)
Social competition but not subfertility leads to a division of labour in the facultatively social sweat bee Megalopta genalis (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)
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DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.06.032
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发表时间：
2009-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Wcislo, William T.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Smith, Adam R.;Kapheim, Karen M.;Wcislo, William T.
具有兼性社会行为的昆虫允许直接考察与劳动分工表达相关的因素：为什么一些雌性作为非生殖觅食者留在它们的纳塔尔巢中，而另一些则分散？社会性嗜盐蜂Megalopta genalis表现出强烈的生殖分工，与身体大小（觅食者往往比女王和传播者小）。我们使用M。genalis测试两个假设的表达工人的行为：（1）皇后抑制繁殖的下属，然后饲料，和（2）小身体的女性是残疾人作为生殖，因此采取觅食的作用，以协助一个更肥沃的亲戚（'低生育力'假说）。我们从19个巢中取出皇后，发现其余的觅食者扩大了卵巢，并以相同的速度从未经处理的（nonremoval）巢中单独繁殖。这一观察结果表明，女王的优势限制繁殖下属，觅食没有残疾的生殖。为了研究在没有社会互动的情况下，身体大小变化对繁殖率的影响，我们将31个观察巢中的单身，新羽化的女性。身体大小与生殖输出或与观察巢中的女性任期不相关。也没有任何相关性之间的身体大小和育雏细胞的数量在21个孤雌非拆除巢。综合这些数据表明，小的女性并不是天生的生殖能力差。我们还发现，来自社会群体的生殖雌性的卵巢比那些单独生殖的卵巢大，这表明社会结构塑造卵巢发育。(C)2009年，动物行为研究协会。由爱思唯尔有限公司出版。保留所有权利。
Insects with facultative social behaviour permit direct examination of factors associated with the expression of division of labour: why do some females remain in their natal nest as nonreproductive foragers, while others disperse? The facultatively social halictid bee Megalopta genalis shows strong reproductive division of labour, associated with body size ( foragers tend to be smaller than queens and dispersers). We used M. genalis to test two hypotheses for the expression of worker behaviour: ( 1) queens suppress reproduction by subordinates, which then forage, and ( 2) small-bodied females are handicapped as reproductives, and therefore take on a foraging role to assist a more fertile relative ( the 'subfertility' hypothesis). We removed queens from 19 nests and found that the remaining foragers enlarged their ovaries and reproduced at the same rate as solitary reproductives from unmanipulated (nonremoval) nests. This observation suggests that queen dominance limited reproduction by subordinates, and that foragers were not handicapped reproductives. To investigate the effect of body size variation on reproductive rate in the absence of social interactions, we placed single, newly eclosed females into 31 observation nests. Body size was not correlated with reproductive output or with the females' tenure in the observation nests. Nor was there any correlation between body size and number of brood cells in 21 solitary-female nonremoval nests. Taken together these data show that small females were not inherently poor reproductives. We also found that ovaries of reproductive females from social groups were larger than those of solitary reproductives, suggesting that social structure shapes ovary development. (C) 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.