title: Rapid behavioral maturation accelerates failure of stressed honey bee colonies.
abstract: Many complex factors have been linked to the recent marked increase in honey bee colony failure, including pests and pathogens, agrochemicals, and nutritional stressors. It remains unclear, however, why colonies frequently react to stressors by losing almost their entire adult bee population in a short time, resulting in a colony population collapse. Here we examine the social dynamics underlying such dramatic colony failure. Bees respond to many stressors by foraging earlier in life. We manipulated the demography of experimental colonies to induce precocious foraging in bees and used radio tag tracking to examine the consequences of precocious foraging for their performance. Precocious foragers completed far fewer foraging trips in their life, and had a higher risk of death in their first flights. We constructed a demographic model to explore how this individual reaction of bees to stress might impact colony performance. In the model, when forager death rates were chronically elevated, an increasingly younger forager force caused a positive feedback that dramatically accelerated terminal population decline in the colony. This resulted in a breakdown in division of labor and loss of the adult population, leaving only brood, food, and few adults in the hive. This study explains the social processes that drive rapid depopulation of a colony, and we explore possible strategies to prevent colony failure. Understanding the process of colony failure helps identify the most effective strategies to improve colony resilience.
authors: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia; School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom;
authors: Clint J
authors: CJ
authors: Perry
authors: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia; Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130; and.
authors: Eirik
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9347-0831
authors: E
authors: Søvik
authors: School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors: Mary R
authors: MR
authors: Myerscough
authors: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia; andrew.barron@mq.edu.au.
authors: Andrew B
authors: AB
authors: Barron
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D056631:Colony Collapse; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D008136:Longevity / Q000502:physiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D057233:Radio Frequency Identification Device; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: RFID; behavioral development; colony collapse disorder; compartment model; temporal polyethism