Abstract
For social insects, colony performance is largely dependent on the quantity and quality of food intake and thus on the efficiency of its foragers. In addition to innate preferences and previous experience, foragers can use social information to decide when and where to forage. In some stingless bee (Meliponini) species, individual foraging decisions are shown to be influenced by the presence of social information at resource sites. In dual choice tests, we studied whether visual and/or olfactory cues affect individual decision-making in rigona corvina Cockerell and if this information is species-specific. We found that T. corvina foragers possess local enhancement: they are attracted by olfactory and visual cues released by conspecifics but avoid feeders associated with heterospecific individuals of the species Tetragona ziegleri (Friese). Overall, olfactory cues seem to be more important than visual cues, but information by visual cues alone is sufficient for discrimination.
Highlights
When foragers of eusocial insects approach new food sources, their decision to land can be influenced by the presence or absence of visual or chemical information provided by other individuals (Slaa et al, 2003; Danchin et al, 2004; Leadbeater & Chittka, 2007; Yokoi & Fujisaki, 2011)
To evaluate if odor cues, e.g. epicuticular hydrocarbons play a role in the recognition of nestmates at the feeding site, or if the visual presence of conspecifics is sufficient for the effect of local enhancement, we confronted the foraging bees with one feeder surrounded by three freshly killed conspecifics and a second feeder surrounded by the same number of hexane-washed dead conspecifics
In experiment 3, we tested if T. corvina foragers can distinguish between conspecifics and heterospecifics
Summary
When foragers of eusocial insects approach new food sources, their decision to land can be influenced by the presence or absence of visual or chemical information provided by other individuals (Slaa et al, 2003; Danchin et al, 2004; Leadbeater & Chittka, 2007; Yokoi & Fujisaki, 2011). The information can be produced on purpose or inadvertently and may be of different modalities, as for example visual, olfactory or tactile (Danchin et al, 2004; Dall et al, 2005; Kendal et al, 2005; Gruter & Leadbeater, 2014) Such publicly accessible information provided by conspecific or heterospecific individuals allows the observer to adaptively change its behavior to gain fitness benefits, such as assessing the location and quality of a food source (Chittka & Leadbeater, 2005; Goodale et al, 2010, Yokoi & Fujisaki, 2011). Chemical information is provided by the profile of epicuticular hydrocarbons, which is species- and colony-specific (Howard & Blomquist, 1982; Nunes et al, 2011)
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