Brown, Mark J.F.

Dodd, Amber

Fuerst, Matthias, A.

English

Sydney eScholarship

Work or rest? Resting of bumblebees in a social contextDodd A., Brown M.J.F., Fürst M.A. Sleep in vertebrates is essential, however very little is known about resting behaviours in invertebrates1,2. Social insects constitute an especially interesting case as there should be a trade-off between the optimal individual resting time at the individual and at the colony level. Whilst the individual should optimize its regeneration the colony should optimize its efficiency. To test this hypothesis we set up bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) in different social contexts and observed their resting behaviours along with their ovary development.SetupResultsConclusion- Bees in groups without brood show the least resting behaviour.- The deepest form of rest (Rest 1, where bees rest on the substrate with no bodypart moving) is performed almost   exclusively by isolated bees. - Bees without brood have the most developed ovaries, whilst bees in isolation or bees with brood show hardly any ovary   development.- It seems resting behaviour has a social component whereby colony functioning is traded off against individual   regenerationAcknowledgementsWe are grateful to Catherine Jones and Oscar Ramoz-Rodriguez for their valuable help in the lab and the whole RHUL crew for the the animating working environmentAffiliations1) Royal Holloway University of London, TW20 0EX Egham, United Kingdom2) IST (Institute for Science and Technology) Austria, Am Campus 1, 3400 Klosterneuburg, AustriaReferences1) Sauer, S., et al. "The dynamics of sleep-like behaviour in honey bees." Journal of Comparative Physiology A 189.8 (2003): 599-607.2) Klein, B.A., T.D. Seeley. "Work or sleep? Honeybee foragers opportunistically nap during the day when forage is not available." Animal Behaviour 82.1 (2011): 77-83.Individual (N=7) social non-brood (N=7) social brood (N=7)- three treatment groups in separate cages- resting behaviour of each bee was scored for 1min on 5 occasions- after three weeks ovary development was scored Rest 1 Rest 2 Rest 3Rest 4Deep ShallowIntroduction0246individual non−brood broodTreatmentOvary developmentA B ATime spent resting Ovary development1 1 1,2ContactsMatthias Fürst: apocrite@gmail.comMark Brown: mark.brown@rhul.ac.uk0250500750individual non−brood broodTreatmentResting time in secondsRest 1Rest 2Rest 3Rest 4A B CA ABA A BA B CA B AOverall resting time:comparison of fit of full model to null model: F2, 305=11.3, P<0.001   Ovary development: likelihood ratio test comparing the full model to the null model: χ2=55.5, d.f.=7, P<0.001

Work or rest? Resting of bumblebees in a social context

https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/11236/4/Poster058.pdf

Work or rest? Resting of bumblebees in a social context

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Sydney eScholarship