Automated monitoring reveals extreme interindividual variation and plasticity in honeybee foraging activity levels
Automated monitoring reveals extreme interindividual variation and plasticity in honeybee foraging activity levels
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DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.06.006
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发表时间：
2014-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Robinson, Gene E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Tenczar, Paul;Lutz, Claudia C.;Robinson, Gene E.
在许多真社会性昆虫物种中，工蜂表现出一种有时被称为“精英主义”的现象，即从事一项任务的一小部分个体工蜂完成了整个殖民地所完成的大部分工作。这种现象还没有得到很好的研究觅食行为的蜜蜂（蜜蜂），因为觅食活动的详细观察研究一直受到限制的困难，成功地跟踪大量的个别工人。在这里，我们使用射频识别技术来自动监测蜜蜂的飞行行为，并为来自多个殖民地的大量个体生成终身飞行活动记录。我们观察到蜜蜂觅食者的活动水平存在一致的偏斜，类似于许多其他社会性昆虫的报告。然而，这种倾斜是一个后果的调制觅食活动的环境和社会因素，而不是存在一个独特的群体或亚种姓的精英觅食。个体对觅食劳动力实验操作的反应证实，活动水平根据群体需求进行灵活调整。这些结果表明，精英主义在昆虫社会中可以出现作为一个稳定的频谱的个人行为活动，使殖民地容易地响应意外的需求，而不是依赖于一个严格定义的工人的子组的反应的极端。(C)2014年动物行为研究协会。爱思唯尔有限公司出版
Workers in many eusocial insect species show a phenomenon sometimes referred to as 'elitism', in which a small proportion of individual workers engaged in a task perform a disproportionately large fraction of the work achieved by the colony as a whole. This phenomenon has not been well studied for foraging behaviour in honeybees (Apis mellifera) because detailed observational studies of foraging activity have been limited by the difficulty of successfully tracking large numbers of individual workers. Here, we used radio frequency identification technology to monitor honeybee flight behaviour automatically and generate lifetime flight activity records for large numbers of individuals from multiple colonies. We observed a consistent skew in activity levels of honeybee foragers, similar to that reported in many other social insects. However, this skew was a consequence of modulation of foraging activity by environmental and social factors rather than the existence of a distinct group or subcaste of elite foragers. Individual responses to experimental manipulation of the foraging workforce confirmed that activity level was flexibly adjusted according to colony needs. These results demonstrate that elitism in insect societies can arise as the extreme of a stable spectrum of individual behavioural activity that allows the colony to respond easily to unexpected needs rather than relying on responses of a rigidly defined subgroup of workers. (C) 2014 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd.