Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees

Abstract Workers of social insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, show some degree of inter-individual variability in decision-making, learning and memory. Whether these natural cognitive differences translate into distinct adaptive behavioural strategies is virtually unknown. Here we examined varia...

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Autores principales:	Simon Klein, Cristian Pasquaretta, Andrew B. Barron, Jean-Marc Devaud, Mathieu Lihoreau
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/bc82502dae6744da9fcc1df8ccd96799
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:bc82502dae6744da9fcc1df8ccd967992021-12-02T12:32:38ZInter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees10.1038/s41598-017-04919-82045-2322https://doaj.org/article/bc82502dae6744da9fcc1df8ccd967992017-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04919-8https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Workers of social insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, show some degree of inter-individual variability in decision-making, learning and memory. Whether these natural cognitive differences translate into distinct adaptive behavioural strategies is virtually unknown. Here we examined variability in the movement patterns of bumblebee foragers establishing routes between artificial flowers. We recorded all flower visitation sequences performed by 29 bees tested for 20 consecutive foraging bouts in three experimental arrays, each characterised by a unique spatial configuration of artificial flowers and three-dimensional landmarks. All bees started to develop efficient routes as they accumulated foraging experience in each array, and showed consistent inter-individual differences in their levels of route fidelity and foraging performance, as measured by travel speed and the frequency of revisits to flowers. While the tendency of bees to repeat the same route was influenced by their colony origin, foraging performance was correlated to body size. The largest foragers travelled faster and made less revisits to empty flowers. We discuss the possible adaptive value of such inter-individual variability within the forager caste for optimisation of colony-level foraging performances in social pollinators.Simon KleinCristian PasquarettaAndrew B. BarronJean-Marc DevaudMathieu LihoreauNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Simon Klein Cristian Pasquaretta Andrew B. Barron Jean-Marc Devaud Mathieu Lihoreau Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
description	Abstract Workers of social insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, show some degree of inter-individual variability in decision-making, learning and memory. Whether these natural cognitive differences translate into distinct adaptive behavioural strategies is virtually unknown. Here we examined variability in the movement patterns of bumblebee foragers establishing routes between artificial flowers. We recorded all flower visitation sequences performed by 29 bees tested for 20 consecutive foraging bouts in three experimental arrays, each characterised by a unique spatial configuration of artificial flowers and three-dimensional landmarks. All bees started to develop efficient routes as they accumulated foraging experience in each array, and showed consistent inter-individual differences in their levels of route fidelity and foraging performance, as measured by travel speed and the frequency of revisits to flowers. While the tendency of bees to repeat the same route was influenced by their colony origin, foraging performance was correlated to body size. The largest foragers travelled faster and made less revisits to empty flowers. We discuss the possible adaptive value of such inter-individual variability within the forager caste for optimisation of colony-level foraging performances in social pollinators.
format	article
author	Simon Klein Cristian Pasquaretta Andrew B. Barron Jean-Marc Devaud Mathieu Lihoreau
author_facet	Simon Klein Cristian Pasquaretta Andrew B. Barron Jean-Marc Devaud Mathieu Lihoreau
author_sort	Simon Klein
title	Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
title_short	Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
title_full	Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
title_fullStr	Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
title_full_unstemmed	Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
title_sort	inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/bc82502dae6744da9fcc1df8ccd96799
work_keys_str_mv	AT simonklein interindividualvariabilityintheforagingbehaviouroftrapliningbumblebees AT cristianpasquaretta interindividualvariabilityintheforagingbehaviouroftrapliningbumblebees AT andrewbbarron interindividualvariabilityintheforagingbehaviouroftrapliningbumblebees AT jeanmarcdevaud interindividualvariabilityintheforagingbehaviouroftrapliningbumblebees AT mathieulihoreau interindividualvariabilityintheforagingbehaviouroftrapliningbumblebees
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Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees

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