Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID

The ecological success of social insects is frequently ascribed to improvements in task performance due to division of labour amongst workers. While much research has focused on improvements associated with lifetime task specialization, members of colonies can specialize on a given task over shorter time periods. Eusocial bees in particular must collect pollen and nectar rewards to survive, but most workers appear to mix collection of both rewards over their lifetimes. We asked whether bumblebees specialize over timescales shorter than their lifetime. We also explored factors that govern such patterns, and asked whether reward specialists made more foraging bouts than generalists. In particular, we described antennal morphology and size of all foragers in a single colony and related these factors to each forager’s complete foraging history, obtained using radio frequency identification (RFID). Only a small proportion of foragers were lifetime specialists; nevertheless, >50% of forage...

社会性昆虫的生态成功，常被归因于工蜂群体内劳动分工带来的任务执行效率提升。既往大量研究多聚焦于终生任务特化所带来的性能优化，但蜂群个体实则可在短于终生的时间尺度上，针对特定任务形成特化。就真社会性蜂类（Eusocial bees）而言，它们必须采集花粉与花蜜以维持生存，但绝大多数工蜂在其一生中似乎会同时采集这两类资源。我们提出了两项研究问题：其一，熊蜂是否会在短于终生的时间尺度上形成任务特化？其二，我们探索了调控此类特化模式的影响因素，并探究了资源特化采集者是否比泛化采集者完成更多的觅食外出次数。具体而言，我们对单个蜂群内所有觅食蜂的触角形态与体型参数进行了全面测量，并将这些特征与通过射频识别（Radio Frequency Identification, RFID）技术获取的每只觅食蜂的完整觅食历史进行关联分析。仅有极小比例的觅食蜂属于终生特化者；然而，超过50%的觅食……