Emergence of increased division of labor as a function of group size

Jeanson, Raphaël; Fewell, Jennifer H.; Gorelick, Root; Bertram, Susan M.

doi:10.1007/s00265-007-0464-5

Cited by 163 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…However, below this threshold (when seasons are too short), intermediate social species may either forgo the production of the worker brood and revert to a solitary life history [21] or evolve towards higher degrees of sociality with shorter development times, larger colony sizes, increased division of labour and greater social cohesion. Indeed, through improved foraging efficiency and nest thermoregulation, highly social species can decrease brood development times [25][26][27], which may allow them to overcome the constraints of season length and colonize harsher environments. Highly social species are also capable of foraging at lower temperatures than many other species; this could also increase the number of foraging days available to them at any given altitude, and therefore increase the maximum altitudes at which these species could occur.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitions in social complexity along elevational gradients reveal a combined impact of season length and development time on social evolution

et al. 2014

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Eusociality is taxonomically rare, yet associated with great ecological success. Surprisingly, studies of environmental conditions favouring eusociality are often contradictory. Harsh conditions associated with increasing altitude and latitude seem to favour increased sociality in bumblebees and ants, but the reverse pattern is found in halictid bees and polistine wasps. Here, we compare the life histories and distributions of populations of 176 species of Hymenoptera from the Swiss Alps. We show that differences in altitudinal distributions and development times among social forms can explain these contrasting patterns: highly social taxa develop more quickly than intermediate social taxa, and are thus able to complete the reproductive cycle in shorter seasons at higher elevations. This dual impact of altitude and development time on sociality illustrates that ecological constraints can elicit dynamic shifts in behaviour, and helps explain the complex distribution of sociality across ecological gradients.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitions in social complexity along elevational gradients reveal a combined impact of season length and development time on social evolution

et al. 2014

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“…We used 9 small hives (Miniplus (R)) filled with ~4,000 workers each (compared to 1,000 in Greco et al 2013). Such size corresponds to experimental unit able to express all normal behaviours of a full sized colony (Seeley 1995, Jeanson et al, 2007. Hives were filled with combs previously drawn from foundation wax sheets in other colonies.…”

Section: Hive Preparation and Feeding Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

No spatial patterns for early nectar storage in honey bee colonies

et al. 2015

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Honeybees, Apis, forage for nectar and pollen, which are subsequently stored in cells of their nests. Despite the importance of honey storage for colony survival, very little is known about decision making by honey bee workers that could optimise the transformation of nectar into honey. Here we test, using Diagnostic Radioentomology, whether workers use rules based on sugar concentration to optimise the spatial distribution of storage cells during nectar ripening.The data show that after the first three days of storing activity, various sugar concentrations Alternatively, but not mutually exclusive, physiological constraints (e.g. variation in the perception of sugar concentration) might limit such optimisation behaviour. Storing behaviour can serve as a model to better understand food provisioning and complex organisation of insect societies.

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“…An important assumption of most of these models is that the distribution of response thresholds in the group is normally distributed (Graham et al 2006;Jeanson et al 2007;Myerscough and Oldroyd 2004). However, very little is known about the genetic architecture of response thresholds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Task-dependent influence of genetic architecture and mating frequency on division of labour in social insect societies

Tarapore

Floreano

Keller

2009

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Division of labour is one of the most prominent features of social insects. The efficient allocation of individuals to different tasks requires dynamic adjustment in response to environmental perturbations. Theoretical models suggest that the colony-level flexibility in responding to external changes and internal perturbation may depend on the within-colony genetic diversity, which is affected by the number of breeding individuals. However, these models have not considered the genetic architecture underlying the propensity of workers to perform the various tasks. Here, we investigated how both within-colony genetic variability (stemming from variation in the number of matings by queens) and the number of genes influencing the stimulus (threshold) for a given task at which workers begin to perform that task jointly influence task allocation efficiency. We used a numerical agent-based model to investigate the situation where workers had to perform either a regulatory task or a foraging task. One hundred generations of artificial selection in populations consisting of 500 colonies revealed that an increased number of matings always improved colony performance, whatever the number of loci encoding the thresholds of the regulatory and foraging tasks. However, the beneficial effect of additional matings was particularly important when the genetic architecture of queens comprised one or a few genes for the foraging task's threshold. By contrast, a higher number of genes encoding the foraging task reduced colony performance with the detrimental effect being stronger when queens had mated with several males. Finally, the number of genes encoding the threshold for the regulatory task only had a minor effect on colony performance. Overall, our numerical experiments support the importance of mating frequency on efficiency of division of labour and also reveal complex interactions between the number of matings and genetic architecture.

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Emergence of increased division of labor as a function of group size

Cited by 163 publications

References 53 publications

Transitions in social complexity along elevational gradients reveal a combined impact of season length and development time on social evolution

Transitions in social complexity along elevational gradients reveal a combined impact of season length and development time on social evolution

No spatial patterns for early nectar storage in honey bee colonies

Task-dependent influence of genetic architecture and mating frequency on division of labour in social insect societies

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