Pulsed mass recruitment by a stingless bee, Trigona hyalinata |
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Authors: | Nieh James C Contrera Felipe A L Nogueira-Neto Paulo |
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Institution: | Section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, MC#0116, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. jnieh@ucsd.edu |
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Abstract: | Research on bee communication has focused on the ability of the highly social bees, stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini) and honeybees (Apidae, Apini), to communicate food location to nest-mates. Honeybees can communicate food location through the famous waggle dance. Stingless bees are closely related to honeybees and communicate food location through a variety of different mechanisms, many of which are poorly understood. We show that a stingless bee, Trigona hyalinata, uses a pulsed mass-recruitment system that is highly focused in time and space. Foragers produced an ephemeral, polarized, odour trail consisting of mandibular gland secretions. Surprisingly, the odour trail extended only a short distance away from the food source, instead of providing a complete trail between the nest and the food source (as has been described for other stingless bees). This abbreviated trail may represent an intermediate strategy between full-trail marking, found in some stingless bees, and odour marking of the food alone, found in stingless bees and honeybees. |
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