Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are increasingly in demand as pollinators for various key agricultural food crops, but globally honey bee populations are in decline, and honey bee colony failure rates have increased. This scenario highlights a need to understand the conditions in which colonies flourish...

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Autores principales:	David S Khoury, Andrew B Barron, Mary R Myerscough
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/c68da48c16a14d58888f63638b246c82
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:c68da48c16a14d58888f63638b246c822021-11-18T07:46:45ZModelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0059084https://doaj.org/article/c68da48c16a14d58888f63638b246c822013-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/23667418/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are increasingly in demand as pollinators for various key agricultural food crops, but globally honey bee populations are in decline, and honey bee colony failure rates have increased. This scenario highlights a need to understand the conditions in which colonies flourish and in which colonies fail. To aid this investigation we present a compartment model of bee population dynamics to explore how food availability and bee death rates interact to determine colony growth and development. Our model uses simple differential equations to represent the transitions of eggs laid by the queen to brood, then hive bees and finally forager bees, and the process of social inhibition that regulates the rate at which hive bees begin to forage. We assume that food availability can influence both the number of brood successfully reared to adulthood and the rate at which bees transition from hive duties to foraging. The model predicts complex interactions between food availability and forager death rates in shaping colony fate. Low death rates and high food availability results in stable bee populations at equilibrium (with population size strongly determined by forager death rate) but consistently increasing food reserves. At higher death rates food stores in a colony settle at a finite equilibrium reflecting the balance of food collection and food use. When forager death rates exceed a critical threshold the colony fails but residual food remains. Our model presents a simple mathematical framework for exploring the interactions of food and forager mortality on colony fate, and provides the mathematical basis for more involved simulation models of hive performance.David S KhouryAndrew B BarronMary R MyerscoughPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 5, p e59084 (2013)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q David S Khoury Andrew B Barron Mary R Myerscough Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
description	Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are increasingly in demand as pollinators for various key agricultural food crops, but globally honey bee populations are in decline, and honey bee colony failure rates have increased. This scenario highlights a need to understand the conditions in which colonies flourish and in which colonies fail. To aid this investigation we present a compartment model of bee population dynamics to explore how food availability and bee death rates interact to determine colony growth and development. Our model uses simple differential equations to represent the transitions of eggs laid by the queen to brood, then hive bees and finally forager bees, and the process of social inhibition that regulates the rate at which hive bees begin to forage. We assume that food availability can influence both the number of brood successfully reared to adulthood and the rate at which bees transition from hive duties to foraging. The model predicts complex interactions between food availability and forager death rates in shaping colony fate. Low death rates and high food availability results in stable bee populations at equilibrium (with population size strongly determined by forager death rate) but consistently increasing food reserves. At higher death rates food stores in a colony settle at a finite equilibrium reflecting the balance of food collection and food use. When forager death rates exceed a critical threshold the colony fails but residual food remains. Our model presents a simple mathematical framework for exploring the interactions of food and forager mortality on colony fate, and provides the mathematical basis for more involved simulation models of hive performance.
format	article
author	David S Khoury Andrew B Barron Mary R Myerscough
author_facet	David S Khoury Andrew B Barron Mary R Myerscough
author_sort	David S Khoury
title	Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
title_short	Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
title_full	Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
title_fullStr	Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
title_full_unstemmed	Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
title_sort	modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2013
url	https://doaj.org/article/c68da48c16a14d58888f63638b246c82
work_keys_str_mv	AT davidskhoury modellingfoodandpopulationdynamicsinhoneybeecolonies AT andrewbbarron modellingfoodandpopulationdynamicsinhoneybeecolonies AT maryrmyerscough modellingfoodandpopulationdynamicsinhoneybeecolonies
_version_	1718423000399740928

Modelling food and population dynamics in honey bee colonies.

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