Prisoners receive food fit for a queen: honeybees feed small hive beetles protein-rich glandular secretions through trophallaxis
Autor: | Esther Elizabeth Du Rand, Zoë Langlands, Christian Walter Werner Pirk, Karl Crailsheim, Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf |
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Rok vydání: | 2020 |
Předmět: |
Male
0106 biological sciences Physiology Zoology Aquatic Science Biology medicine.disease_cause 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Nest Pollen medicine Animals Humans Molecular Biology Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Small hive beetle Larva Prisoners Bees Fecundity biology.organism_classification Aggression Coleoptera Worker bee 010602 entomology Insect Science Mimicry Female Animal Science and Zoology Trophallaxis |
Zdroj: | Journal of Experimental Biology. |
ISSN: | 1477-9145 0022-0949 |
Popis: | The honeybee nest parasite Aethina tumida (small hive beetle), uses behavioural mimicry to induce trophallactic feeding from its honeybee hosts. Small hive beetles are able to induce honeybee workers to share the carbohydrate–rich contents of their crops, but it is not clear whether the beetles are able to induce to workers to feed them the protein-rich hypopharyngeal glandular secretions fed to the queen, larvae and other nest mates. Protein is a limiting macronutrient in an insect's diet, essential for survival, growth and fecundity. Honeybees obtain protein from pollen, which is consumed and digested by nurse bees. They then distribute the protein to the rest of the colony in the form of hypopharyngeal gland secretions. Using 14C-phenylalanine as a qualitative marker for protein transfer, we show that small hive beetles successfully induce worker bees to feed them the protein-rich secretions of their hypopharyngeal glands during trophallaxis, and that females are more successful than males in inducing the transfer of these protein-rich secretions. Furthermore, behavioural observations demonstrated that female beetles do not preferentially interact with a specific age cohort of bees when soliciting food, but males tend to be more discriminate and avoids the more aggressive and active older bees. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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