Body Size and Behavioural Plasticity Interact to Influence the Performance of Free-Foraging Bumble Bee Colonies.

ABSTRACT: Specialisation and plasticity are important for many forms of collective behaviour, but the interplay between these factors is little understood. In insect societies, workers are often developmentally primed to specialise in different tasks, sometimes with morphological or physiological adaptations, facilitating a division of labour. Workers may also plastically switch between tasks or vary their effort. The degree to which developmentally primed specialisation limits plasticity is not clear and has not been systematically tested in ecologically relevant contexts. We addressed this question in 20 free-foraging bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) colonies by continually manipulating colonies to contain either a typically diverse, or a reduced ("homogeneous"), worker body size distribution

SUBMITTER: Holland JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8001989 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature