TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence for genetic variation in worker task performance by African and European honey bees
AU - Fewell, Jennifer
AU - Bertram, Susan M.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank Tanya Pankiw and Erik Dziadul for their help in data collection, and Jon Harrison, Rob Page, Root Gorelick, and the members of the ASU Social Insect Research Group for their helpful comments. We would also like to thank Gerry Loper, the USDA-ARS Carl Hayden Bee Laboratory, and the people of the Willow Springs ranch for their help in facilitating this research. This work was supported in part by NIMH Grant no. MH51329 and USDA Grant no. 35302-4395. All experiments comply with the current laws of the United States of America.
PY - 2002/9/1
Y1 - 2002/9/1
N2 - The dramatic competitive advantage of the African honey bee over European bees in the neotropics comes in large part from their faster rates of colony growth and reproduction. In honey bees, brood production, and thus colony growth, are controlled by the workers. Thus, we tested for genetic differences between African and European workers in their preference for tasks associated with brood production by monitoring individual African and European workers cross-fostered in common colony environments. We additionally examined differences in the age of transition between tasks (age polyethism). Our data provide strong evidence for genetically based differences in a subset of tasks. African workers were more likely to collect and process pollen, the nutrient source for brood. They initiated pollen foraging at a younger age, but this result was not significant after Bonferroni adjustment. African and European workers showed no difference in brood-care task performance, and did not vary in the age at which they performed brood-care tasks. These data suggest that a significant part of the competitive advantage of this major invasive pest can be traced to a small subset of worker behaviors, those involving resource intake.
AB - The dramatic competitive advantage of the African honey bee over European bees in the neotropics comes in large part from their faster rates of colony growth and reproduction. In honey bees, brood production, and thus colony growth, are controlled by the workers. Thus, we tested for genetic differences between African and European workers in their preference for tasks associated with brood production by monitoring individual African and European workers cross-fostered in common colony environments. We additionally examined differences in the age of transition between tasks (age polyethism). Our data provide strong evidence for genetically based differences in a subset of tasks. African workers were more likely to collect and process pollen, the nutrient source for brood. They initiated pollen foraging at a younger age, but this result was not significant after Bonferroni adjustment. African and European workers showed no difference in brood-care task performance, and did not vary in the age at which they performed brood-care tasks. These data suggest that a significant part of the competitive advantage of this major invasive pest can be traced to a small subset of worker behaviors, those involving resource intake.
KW - Apis mellifera ligustica
KW - Apis mellifera scutellata
KW - Foraging behavior
KW - Genetic differences
KW - Honey bee
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036764736&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0036764736&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00265-002-0501-3
DO - 10.1007/s00265-002-0501-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0036764736
SN - 0340-5443
VL - 52
SP - 318
EP - 325
JO - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
JF - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
IS - 4
ER -