Costs and benefits of maternal nest choice: Trade-offs between brood survival and thermal stress in bees.

ABSTRACT: Optimal nest site selection is crucial in animals whose offspring are completely dependent on the shelter of a nest. Parental decisions influencing nest thermal conditions are particularly important because temperature strongly influences juvenile activity, metabolism, growth, developmental rate, survival, and adult body size. In small ectotherms such as bees, maternal decisions to nest in sun-exposed or shady sites can lead to marked differences in thermal microenvironments inside nests. Small carpenter bees (Ceratina calcarata) strongly prefer to nest in sun but also prefer nesting substrates more frequently found in shade, suggesting that nest site selection is based on a trade-off between costs and benefits of warmer versus cooler nest sites. We investigated the consequences of sun and

SUBMITTER: deHaan JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11755220 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature