Seasonal shifts in thermoregulatory behavior of bumble bee queens

Many organisms cope with highly variable environmental temperatures by differentiating body temperature from that of the environment through thermoregulation. Heterotherms can both endogenously maintain body temperature with metabolic heat and behaviorally thermoregulate by selecting suitable microclimates. Expending excess energy to maintain stable high body temperatures may be prioritized during certain times of the year, or for certain activities (e.g., reproduction, escape from predation). Alternatively, behavioral thermoregulation may take precedence when energy savings are critical. The degree to which heterotherms rely on these different strategies has rarely been studied. To address this gap, we measured body temperature and selected temperatures on a thermal gradient for heterothermic bumble bee queens (Bombus huntii) at two life stages: during spring, when ovary development prior to colony establishment is critical, and in fall, when they build energy stores for overwintering...., , , # Seasonal shifts in thermoregulatory behavior of bumble bee queens

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.05qfttfd4](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.05qfttfd4)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: huntiiTpref.csv

**Description:**  We used one .csv (“huntiTpref.csv” which consists of the following 8 columns:

##### Variables

* trial: 30-minute run of no more than 5 individuals on the thermal gradient
* bee.id: individual identifier
* body.temp: thoracic temperature in Celsius taken from FLIR software
* gradient.temp: gradient temperature in Celsius selected near the individual’s antennae from FLIR software
* season: our treatment groups, *spring* and *fall*
* mass: initial mass in grams of an individual at the start of a trial
* postmass: mass in grams of an individual at the end of a trial
* count.minutes: time body and gradient temperatures were measured during a trial

## Code/software

**Code version**: R version 4.3.1 (2023-06-16 ucrt)

* lib...,