Organisation in eusocial insect colonies emerges from the decisions and actions of its individual members. In turn, these decisions and actions are influenced by the individual's behaviour (or temperament). Although there is variation in the behaviour of individuals within a colony, we know surprisingly little about how (or indeed if) the types of behaviour present in a colony change over time....

..................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 3 1.1 UNDERSTANDING THE BIOLOGICAL RELEVANCE OF BRAIN-BEHAVIOURAL ASYMMETRIES .........................................................................

Int. J. Indust. Entomol. Vol. 27, No. (1), pp. 142-158 (2013) 142 143 Marcilla et al., 2001). Materials and Methods

In modelling bumble bee foraging, net rate of energetic intake has been suggested as the appropriate currency. The foraging behaviour of honey bees is better predicted by using efficiency, the ratio of energetic gain to expenditure, as the currency. We re-analyse several studies of bumble bee foraging and show that efficiency is as good a currency as net rate in terms of predicting behaviour. W...

Potential declines in native pollinator communities and increased reliance on pollinator-dependent crops have raised concerns about native pollinator conservation and dispersal across human-altered landscapes. Bumble bees are one of the most effective native pollinators and are often the first to be extirpated in human-altered habitats, yet little is known about how bumble bees move across fine...

0003-3472/$38.00 The Association for the Study of A doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.11.019 Individuals in many types of animal groups show both reproductive and task-related division of labour. In some social insect species, such division of labour may be related to the spatial organization of workers inside the nest. We examined colonies of bumblebees and found that (1) 11–13% of workers maintained...

Many wild bee species are in global decline, yet much is still unknown about their diversity and contemporary distributions. National parks and forests offer unique areas of refuge important for the conservation of rare and declining species populations. Here we present the results of the first biodiversity survey of the bee fauna in the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF). More than a thousa...

Two experiments were conducted testing for lethal and sublethal effects of the transgenicproteinsCry1Acandchitinase, and thechemical seedand soil treatment imidaclopridonbumble bees (Bombus occidentalis Greene and B. impatiens Cresson, Hymenoptera: Apidae). In the Þrst experiment, B. occidentalis colonies were exposed to realistic residue levels of Cry1Ac, chitinase, and imidacloprid found in p...

Bumble bees (Bombus Latreille) are an important group of social insects, well recognized throughout northern temperate regions as important pollinators of wild and agricultural plants. Little is known about the biology of this group in southern portions of the Americas, especially in Mesoamerica, a region of geological and ecological complexity from Mexico through Central America. One ubiquitou...