Data/hora: 02/06/2024 09:21:21

Biblioteca(s): | Embrapa Amazônia Oriental.
Data corrente: | 28/01/2016
Data da última atualização: | 26/05/2022
Autoria: | HAMMEL, B.; VOLLET-NETO, A.; MENEZES, C.; NASCIMENTO, F. S.; ENGELS, W.; GRÜTER, C.
Afiliação: | Benedikt Hammel, USP / University of Tübingen; Ayrton Vollet-Neto, USP; CRISTIANO MENEZES, CPATU; Fabio S. Nascimento, USP; Wolf Engels, USP / University of Tübingen; Christoph Grüter, USP / University of Lausanne.
Título: | Soldiers in a stingless bee: work rate and task repertoire suggest they are an elite force.
Ano de publicação: | 2016
Fonte/Imprenta: | The American Naturalist, v. 187, n. 1, p. 120-129, Jan. 2016.
DOI: | 10.1086/684192
Idioma: | Inglês
Conteúdo: | The differentiation of workers into morphological subcastes (e.g., soldiers) represents an important evolutionary transition and is thought to improve division of labor in social insects. Soldiers occur in many ant and termite species, where they make up a small proportion of the workforce. A common assumption of worker caste evolution is that soldiers are behavioral specialists. Here, we report the first test of the ?rare specialist? hypothesis in a eusocial bee. Colonies of the stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula are defended by a small group of morphologically differentiated soldiers. Contrary to the rare specialist hypothesis, we found that soldiers worked more (+34%?41%) and performed a greater variety of tasks (+23%?34%) than other workers, particularly early in life. Our results suggest a ?rare elite? function of soldiers in T. angustula, that is, that they perform a disproportionately large amount of the work. Division of labor was based on a combination of temporal and physical castes, but soldiers transitioned faster from one task to the next. We discuss why the rare specialist assumption might not hold in species with a moderate degree of worker differentiation.
Palavras-Chave: | Abelha do ferrão; Divisão do trabalho; Meliponicultura.
Categoria do assunto: | O Insetos e Entomologia
Registro original: | Embrapa Amazônia Oriental (CPATU)
Exemplares: | CPATU - (51996-1) - UPC - AP - DD -  -  -  - DIS