The effect of forager loss on honeybee workers temporal polyethism and social network structure
Beck, Elias (Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution)
Wenseleers, Tom (Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution)
Caliari Oliveira, Ricardo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)

Fecha:	2023
Resumen:	The western honeybee Apis mellifera is perhaps the best-known example of an advanced eusocial species displaying temporal polyethism, a process in which workers perform different tasks in the colony as they age. Previous studies demonstrated that this temporal division of labour is not only regulated by the age of the bees but also by the proportion of workers performing the required tasks in the colony. As we progress through the Anthropocene, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that a significant increase in both the frequency and intensity of severe weather events can be expected in the coming decades. Here, we performed a controlled interrupted time series experiment with the objective of quantifying the possible effects that these weather events might have in the honeybee colony dynamics. By simulating a significant loss of foragers in the colony, we observed that honeybee workers quickly replaced the missing foragers by accelerating their transition to a subsequent task and, in some cases, completely skipped several of the natural task transitions with respect to their age. In addition, we analysed how the colony social network structure is affected by the sudden loss of foragers. Indeed, our data show that honeybee colonies increased their network cohesion with workers having a higher number of interactions as well as becoming more closely connected to one another soon after the disturbance. Overall, our data shows that even when faced with a substantial perturbation, honeybees can respond swiftly in order to maintain colony homeostasis and likely increase their resilience against future perturbations.
Nota:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Apis mellifera ; Age polyethism ; Task allocation ; Social network ; Climate change
Publicado en:	Apidologie, Vol. 54 (October 2023) , art. 51, ISSN 1297-9678

DOI: 10.1007/s13592-023-01030-y

13 p, 1.4 MB

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