The use of conspecific and interspecific scent marks by foraging bumblebees and honeybees

By J C Stout, Dave Goulson. 2001

161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) and honeybees, Apis mellifera, both use odour cues deposited on flowers by previous visitors to improve their foraging efficiency. Short-lived repellent scents are used to avoid probing flowers that have recently been depleted of nectar and/or pollen, and longer-term attractant scents to indicate particularly rewarding flowers. Previous research has indicated that bumblebees avoid flowers recently visited by themselves, conspecifics and congeners, while honeybees avoid flowers visited by themselves or conspecifics only. We found that both bumblebees and honeybees also avoided flowers previously visited by each other when foraging on Melilotus officinalis, that is, bumblebees avoided flowers recently visited by honeybees and vice versa. Twenty-four hours after a visit, this effect had worn off. Honeybees visited flowers that had been visited 24 h previously more often than flowers that had never been visited. The same was not true for bumblebees, suggesting that foraging honeybees were also using long-term attractant scent marks, whilst bumblebees were not. Flowers previously visited by conspecifics were repellent to bumblebees and honeybees for ca. 40 min. During this time, nectar replenished in flowers. Honeybees were previously thought to use a volatile chemical (2-heptanone) as a repellent forage-marking scent. We suggest that they may be using a less volatile chemical odour to detect whether flowers have recently been visited, possibly in addition to 2-heptanone.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c3ed8123b26b95f8076c00ecfd59f31ded68d21c

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. J. Nieh
2. Lars Chittka
3. N. Saleh
4. A. D. Higginson
5. Tom Reader
6. Francis Gilbert
7. E. J. Slaa
8. J. Biesmeijer

In Genetics

1. J. Nieh
2. Lars Chittka
3. N. Saleh
4. Tom Reader
5. Francis Gilbert
6. S. Lev-Yadun
7. Anna R. Dornhaus

In Plant Science

1. A. D. Higginson
2. Tom Reader
3. Lars Chittka
4. Francis Gilbert
5. E. J. Slaa
6. J. Nieh
7. J. Biesmeijer
8. N. Saleh

Citations in the corpus

• The importance of experience in the interpretation of conspecific chemical signals (2006, background): “The repellent effect was found when bees foraged on natural flowers (Reader et al. 2005; Stout and Goulson 2001; Williams 1998) or on artificial flowers where immediate revisits were not rewarding (Giurfa and Núñez 1992).”
• Recruitment communication in stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini) (2004, background): “Target-only odor marking, defined as odormarking of the food source alone, is widespread among the social bees (Kerr et al., 1963; Stout and Goulson, 2001).”
• The effects of predation risk from crab spiders on bee foraging behavior (2006, background): “Previous studies have shown that visitation rates in A. mellifera are strongly influenced by scent cues deposited by the sometimes distantly related species with which it competes (e.g., Cameron 1981; Stout and Goulson 2001; Reader et al. 2005).”
• The use of field–based social information in eusocial foragers: local enhancement among nestmates and heterospecifics in stingless bees (2003, background): “Field-based social information can be either indirect, i.e. scent marks left by other foragers (Ribbands, 1955; Schmitt & Bertsch, 1990; Giurfa & Nuñez, 1992; Stout & Goulson, 2001), or direct, i.e. the physical presence of other visitors (local enhancement).”