Foragers of the stingless bee Plebeia droryana inform nestmates about the direction, but not the distance to food sources

The tropical stingless bees have evolved intricate communication systems to recruit nestmates to food locations. Some species are able to accurately communicate the location of food, whereas others simply announce the presence of food in the environment. Plebeia droryana is a tiny Neotropical stingl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological entomology 2021-02, Vol.46 (1), p.33-40
Main Authors: Peng, Tianfei, Pedrosa, Jéferson, Batista, Jaqueline Eterna, Nascimento, Fabio S., Grüter, Christoph
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Bees
Communications systems
Conspecifics
Cues
Feeders
Food
Food sources
Foraging behavior
local enhancement
Plebeia droryana
Recruitment
stingless bees
Sucrose
Sugar
Visual stimuli
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Summary:The tropical stingless bees have evolved intricate communication systems to recruit nestmates to food locations. Some species are able to accurately communicate the location of food, whereas others simply announce the presence of food in the environment. Plebeia droryana is a tiny Neotropical stingless bee that, until recently, was thought to use a solitary foraging strategy, that is without the use of a recruitment communication system. However, recent research has indicated that P. droryana might be able to recruit nestmates to specific food source locations. We tested this by studying whether foragers can guide nestmates in the direction and the distance of artificial feeders placed in the vicinity of the colony. We trained bees to a scented sucrose solution feeder at 10 m and placed different feeders either in different directions (experiment 1) or in different distances (experiment 2). We found that P. droryana directs newcomers in the right direction, but distance information does not seem to be communicated. Moreover, we then tested whether newcomers use chemical and visual cues originating from nestmates foraging at the food source, but found no evidence for the use of these social cues provided by conspecifics. The potential mechanism that P. droryana may use to orient recruits toward the food source, however, remains unknown and requires further study. The Neotropical stingless bee Plebeia droryana is able to recruit nestmates to specific food source locations. More newcomers arrived in the direction of an exploited food source, whereas distance information does not seem to be transmitted during recruitment. Local enhancement and chemical cues at food sources do not seem to be important for the recruitment system in P. droryana.
ISSN:0307-6946
1365-2311
DOI:10.1111/een.12937