| Title: | "Pulsed mass recruitment by a stingless bee, Trigona hyalinata" |
| Author(s): | Nieh JC; Contrera FA; Nogueira-Neto P; |
| Address: | "Section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, MC#0116, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. jnieh@ucsd.edu" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 0962-8452 (Print) 1471-2954 (Electronic) 0962-8452 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Research on bee communication has focused on the ability of the highly social bees, stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini) and honeybees (Apidae, Apini), to communicate food location to nest-mates. Honeybees can communicate food location through the famous waggle dance. Stingless bees are closely related to honeybees and communicate food location through a variety of different mechanisms, many of which are poorly understood. We show that a stingless bee, Trigona hyalinata, uses a pulsed mass-recruitment system that is highly focused in time and space. Foragers produced an ephemeral, polarized, odour trail consisting of mandibular gland secretions. Surprisingly, the odour trail extended only a short distance away from the food source, instead of providing a complete trail between the nest and the food source (as has been described for other stingless bees). This abbreviated trail may represent an intermediate strategy between full-trail marking, found in some stingless bees, and odour marking of the food alone, found in stingless bees and honeybees" |
| Keywords: | *Animal Communication Animals Bees/*physiology Brazil *Ecology Feeding Behavior/*physiology *Odorants Pheromones/physiology Time Factors; |
| Notes: | "MedlineNieh, James C Contrera, Felipe A L Nogueira-Neto, Paulo eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2003/10/17 Proc Biol Sci. 2003 Oct 22; 270(1529):2191-6. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2003.2486" |
