The influence of marking upon bee behaviour in circle tube experiments with a methodological comparison among studies

Abstract

Circle tubes were used to investigate the influence of marking upon the behavioural profiles of two halictid species; one, Penapis toroi Rozen, putatively solitary, the other, Corynura chloris (Spinola) thought to be semisocial. Previous studies have shown that solitary bees tend to exhibit avoidance behaviour and those with a reproductive division of labour tend to behave aggressively within circle tube arenas. Marked pairs of C. chloris were significantly more cooperative than unmarked pairs and marked P. toroi showed significantly increased aggression and decreased cooperation. These findings suggest that marking bees may reduce behavioural differences among taxa with different types of social organization. Recommendations are made on how to use the circle tube apparatus to detect bee populations that might be worth more detailed studies of social organization and also for standardization in the way results of these studies are presented. Further experiments are suggested to clarify the effects of certain variables upon bee behaviour using this apparatus. The data presented here are the first for any member of the subfamily Rophitinae and the first for any bee thought to be primarily semisocial. A narrower range of behaviours were observed in the Rophitine, Penapis toroi Rozen, in comparison to species from other subfamilies of Halictidae and Corynura chloris Spinola had a behavioural profile similar to that of eusocial species.