![]() ![]() In solitary populations (cooler climates), mated B1 females overwinter before re-starting the cycle the following spring, and there are no workers. rubicundus foundress digs a separate nest burrow after leaving hibernation, where she alone rears a first brood (B1) of offspring (Fig. The following summary of the annual colony cycle is based on previous work (Yanega 1993 Hogendoorn and Leys 1997 Soucy 2002 Soucy and Danforth 2002 Chapuisat 2010 Field et al. 1996 Soucy and Danforth 2002 Field et al. ![]() socially polymorphic), depending on the length of the growing season (Eickwort et al. The sweat bee Halictus rubicundus may be either social or solitary (i.e. Changes in phenology, as a response to climate change, are documented in many animal groups (Parmesan 2006), but it is not known how warming temperatures will impact species whose colony size is causally dependent on environmental conditions. For example, the pollination performance of a honey bee colony is affected by the number of colony workers (Free and Preece 1969), and the number of workers is often determined by ecological factors, such as the length of the foraging season (Bourke 1999). ![]() The size of the social insect work force will often correlate with its level of ecological impact. The social hymenopterans such as bees, wasps and ants that often live in large, complex societies are of tremendous ecological and economic importance (Aizen and Harder 2009 Ascunce et al. Thus, while plasticity itself is likely to have a genetic basis, phenotypic differences between populations need not imply fixed genetic differences. For example, recent studies of both carrion crows and sweat bees have found that sociality may be plastic, with social phenotype being influenced by local environmental conditions (Baglione et al. While it was originally believed that transitions between the two phenotypes must involve mutation and selection, social phenotype is now known to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors (Schwander et al. The progression from solitary living to caste-based sociality is heralded as a major evolutionary transition (Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1995). In contrast, eusociality is characterised by reproductive division of labour, where some members of the society forfeit their reproduction to help rear the offspring of others. In insects and vertebrates with parental care, a solitary life history entails a single female or breeding pair provisioning their own offspring. This dramatic shift in social organisation due to climate change should lead to a bigger workforce being available for summer pollination and may contribute towards mitigating the current pollinator crisis. We demonstrate that worker numbers should increase throughout Great Britain under predicted climate change scenarios, and importantly, that sociality should appear in northern areas where it has never before been observed. We analysed detailed foraging data in relation to climate change predictions for Great Britain to assess when and where switches from a solitary to social lifestyle may be expected. Depending on the time available in spring during which a foundress can produce worker offspring, the sweat bee Halictus rubicundus is either social or solitary. If sociality can be environmentally driven, the question arises as to how projected climate change will influence features of social organisation that were previously thought to be of macroevolutionary proportions. However, it has recently been shown that in some taxa, sociality may be plastic and dependent on local conditions. The progression from solitary living to caste-based sociality is commonly regarded as a major evolutionary transition. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |