Behavioral Ecology Advance Access originally published online on July 16, 2009
Behavioral Ecology 2009 20(5):1106-1110; doi:10.1093/beheco/arp103
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Worker reproduction in mixed-species colonies of honey bees
a Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Science, Kunming 650223, Yunnan Province, China b Eastern Bee Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, Yunnan Province, China c Department of Statistics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa d Bee Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa e Ratchaburi Campus, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok 10140, Thailand f Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa g Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences A12, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia
Address correspondence to S. Radloff. E-mail: s.radloff{at}ru.ac.za.
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Abstract |
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To explore reasons for the unusually high rates of worker ovary activation in Apis cerana, we investigated the reproductive physiology of workers in conspecific and mixed-species colonies of A. cerana and its sibling species Apis mellifera under queenright and queenless conditions. In both queenless and queenright conspecific colonies, the proportion of A. cerana workers with activated ovaries was significantly greater than the proportion of A. mellifera workers with activated ovaries. Apis cerana workers showed significantly greater ovary activation in queenright mixed-species colonies than in conspecific queenright colonies. Moreover, there was significantly greater ovary activation in A. cerana workers in mixed-species colonies headed by A. mellifera queens than A. mellifera workers in mixed-species colonies headed by A. cerana queens. Apis mellifera workers in conspecific queenless colonies showed significantly greater ovary activation than those in mixed-species queenless colonies. Quantification of the chemical components of mandibular gland pheromones of queens of the 2 species showed that they are similar. Combined, our results show that queen signals have been preserved between the 2 species and that workers respond to the heterospecific signals from queens. However, despite the similarity in the queen mandibular gland fatty acid secretions between the 2 species, workers respond differentially toward hetero- and conspecific queens.
Key words: Apis cerana, Apis mellifera, honest signals, ovary activation, pheromones, queen mandibular pheromone, worker.
Received 2 January 2009; revised 29 May 2009; accepted 21 June 2009.