Task specialisation in eusocial bee workers

A striking feature of advanced insect societies is the existence of workers that forgo reproduction. Two broad types of workers exist in eusocial bees: nurses which care for their young siblings and the queen, and foragers who guard the nest and forage for food. Comparisons between this two worker subcastes have been performed in honeybees, but data from other bees are scarce. To understand whether similar molecular mechanisms are involved in nurse-forager differences across distinct species, we compared gene expression and DNA methylation profiles between nurses and foragers of the buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris and of the stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula.