0000000000744964
AUTHOR
Benedikt Hammel
Enemy recognition is linked to soldier size in a polymorphic stingless bee
Many ant and termite colonies are defended by soldiers with powerful mandibles or chemical weaponry. Recently, it was reported that several stingless bee species also have soldiers for colony defence. These soldiers are larger than foragers, but otherwise lack obvious morphological adaptations for defence. Thus, how these soldiers improve colony fitness is not well understood. Robbing is common in stingless bees and we hypothesized that increased body size improves the ability to recognize intruders based on chemosensory cues. We studied the Neotropical species Tetragonisca angustula and found that large soldiers were better than small soldiers at recognizing potential intruders. Larger so…
Movie of behavioural assay from Enemy recognition is linked to soldier size in a polymorphic stingless bee
This movie shows one example of an introduction of a non-nestmate and the response of guard bees
Raw data from Enemy recognition is linked to soldier size in a polymorphic stingless bee
This file contains the raw data used for the analysis