Self assessment in insects: honeybee queens know their own strength.
Contests mediate access to reproductive opportunities in almost all species of animals. An important aspect of the evolution of contests is the reduction of the costs incurred during intra-specific encounters to a minimum. However, escalated fights are commonly lethal in some species like the honeybee, Apis mellifera. By experimentally reducing honeybee queens' fighting abilities, we demonstrate that they refrain from engaging in lethal contests that typically characterize their reproductive dominance behavior and coexist peacefully within a colony. This suggests that weak queens exploit an alternative reproductive strategy and provides an explanation for rare occurrences of queen cohabitation in nature. Our results further indicate that self-assessment, but not mutual assessment of fighting ability occurs prior to and during the agonistic encounters.
Dietemann
Vincent
V
Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
Zheng
Huo-Qing
HQ
Hepburn
Colleen
C
Hepburn
H Randall
HR
Jin
Shui-Hua
SH
Crewe
Robin M
RM
Radloff
Sarah E
SE
Hu
Fu-Liang
FL
Pirk
Christian W W
CW
D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005260:Female