Presentation Details
| Work Harder or Work Smarter? Foraging Effort & Efficiency in Bumblebees Sheila Shu-Laam Chan1, 2, Claire T.Hemingway1, 2, 3. 1Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.2The Collaborative for Animal Behavior (CoLAB), The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.3Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |
Abstract
Although division of labor is a hallmark of eusocial insects, bumblebees exhibit flexible task allocation, not fixed specialization. How individuals decide which tasks to perform under such flexibility remains poorly understood. We investigated whether individual foraging performance predicts foraging effort in bumblebees (Bombus impatiens). Good foragers may show greater effort, collecting more nectar per trip (work harder); conversely, they may invest less effort, as fewer trips yield the same amount (work smarter). We tested individual bees in the lab with an array of flowers in two colors associated with different quality ‘nectar’ rewards. We measured individual foraging efficiency as by the quality and quantity ‘nectar’ collected by each bee as well as the trial period and effort by the number of foraging trials made and inter-trial intervals. This work will help reveal how bees integrate information about task performance when specializing on a task, advancing our understanding of the regulation of task performance and division of labor in highly social animals.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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