Does intraspecific size variation in bumblebees allow colonies to efficiently exploit different flowers?

By J. Peat, J. Tucker, Dave Goulson. 2005

105 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract.  1. It has long been known that foraging bumblebee workers vary greatly in size, within species, and within single nests. This phenomenon has not been adequately explained. Workers of their relatives within the Apidae exhibit much less size variation.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/860c3589ee5fc708d5f25ede462007b8cafe96b1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. Dave Goulson
2. S. Leonhardt
3. Ben Darvill
4. Kate R. Sparrow
5. N. Blüthgen
6. G. C. Lye
7. J. Peat
8. F. Drummond

In Genetics

1. Dave Goulson
2. Kate R. Sparrow
3. J. Peat
4. S. Leonhardt
5. N. Blüthgen
6. Ben Darvill
7. G. C. Lye
8. N. E. Raine

In Insect Science

1. Dave Goulson
2. Kate R. Sparrow
3. S. Leonhardt
4. N. Blüthgen
5. Ben Darvill
6. G. C. Lye
7. J. Peat
8. F. Drummond

Citations in the corpus

• Diet breadth, coexistence and rarity in bumblebees (2008, background): “…variation within species, which increases resource overlap between species but allows dietary specialization among nest mates (Goulson et al. 2002a, Peat et al. 2005a, b) Studies in Colorado appear to suggest that species with similar length tongues exclude one another from floral resources…”
• Evidence for competition between honeybees and bumblebees; effects on bumblebee worker size (2009, background): “The thorax width is proportional to the overall size of the bee (Peat et al. 2005a, b).”
• The same, but different: pollen foraging in honeybee and bumblebee colonies (2011, background): “Notably, studies that have investigated floral resources used by bumblebees were mainly focused on foragers observed at flowers in the field (Williams 1989; Goulson and Darvill 2004; Peat et al. 2005; Kleijn and Raemakers 2008; Xie et al. 2008; Connop et al. 2010).”
• Effects of climate on intra- and interspecific size variation in bumble-bees (2005, background): “150 J. Peat et al. © 2005 British Ecological Society, Functional Ecology, 19, 145–151 both among species, and among races of B. terrestris.”
• Pollination reservoirs for wild bee habitat enhancement in cropping systems: a review (2017, background): “Tongue length differs between bee species (and castes), determines the insect’s ability to extract nectar from deeper corollas (Carvell et al. 2006; Harder 1985) and influences handling efficiencies (Peat, Tucker, and Goulson 2005).”