Social insects #1

Includes Bees, wasps and ants

Polyethism

Found in ants. Different jobs for different workers. If you look a certain way you do a certain thing. It is different for different species.

Alate

Have wings

Deciduous

Wings fall off

Wing scars

In ants post nuptial flight ht queen will rip or chew her wings off so it’s easier for her to move around underground.

Pleometrosis

Found in ants. Condition where there can be more than one queen at a time. This can lead to polygenous nests.

Polygynous nest

Multiple queens where queens working together from the start, or colonies taking in new queens later.  This is common in areas with ephemeral resources. It can help the colony get started faster.

Monogyny nest

here is only one female queen who mates with all the males in her colony. It arises via dominance of one queen.

Weaver ants

Arts and craft ants. They use collaborative construction, they are very organized. They fold up leaves into tents. The larvae produce silk and are carried and probed to sew the leaves up into the new nest..

Physogastry

The queen in higher termites becomes enormous as her abdomen swells.

Psudergates

Developmentally flexible juvenile. They are still able to go one way or another with the ability to differentiate by moult. Found in earlier termite lineages.

subsocial

A type of social insect. It only meets 1 or 2 of the qualities of Eusocial insects. Or all 3 except not at the same time.

Eusocial

True sociality that lives in highly organized colonies. They meet all the qualities of sociality.

Altruism

An evolutionary trait in Hymenoptera it includes,

• Kin selection

• MAternal Manipulation

• Mutualism

Kin

Individuals with similar or identical genotypes derived from the relatedness due to having the same parents

Kin selection

Individuals can recognize individuals w/ the same genotype/same parents. 

Haploidiploidy

A trait of hymenopteran kin selection. It enhances kin relatedness by replacing classical fitness with collective fitness.

Hamiltons rule

An equation that examines the costs and benefits of altruistic behaviour and degree of relatedness.

rB – C > 0 (r= degree of relatedness; B=benefit; C=cost of altruism)

Maternal manipualtion

Queen and other reproductive systems can behaviorally + genetically/chemically manipulate everyone else.

Mutualism

Individuals act for classical fitness then the incidental benefit from colonial life means an increase in collective fitness such as you get protected, food, habitat, etc…

Axillary queens

Queens that can assist the main queen of vespidae colonies. They remain subordinate tot he main queen though.

Trophogenic

A part of honeybee caste development that is determined by quantity and quality of larval diet. The bees can recognize the shape of the cell and oviposit and feed accordingly.

Queen Mandibular pheromone

 It is produced in the queens mandibular glands. It is exchanged throughout the colony through oral trophollaxis which inhibits ovaries of the workers making them sterile.

Footprint pheromone

A pheromone that tells workers where a queen was and why. It is released through the queen's tarsal glands as she walks around the hive. It dissipates quickly.

Colony fission

When swarming occurs in ideal conditions in honey bees. These conditions include overcrowding, overheating or disturbances. It reduces the production/presence of QMP.

Prime swarm

The leaving group. It includes many workers. It takes the old queen with it.

Scout bees

Bees who leave the swarm searching for a new hive location and then report back to the prime swarm w/ pheromones and the scout dance.

Queen emergency cell

Occurs if there is a sudden absence of a queen. The cell of a  <1 day old larvae that they will quickly feed with Royal Jelly. They will convert this worker cells into a queen cell.

Worker drone layers

Occurs if there is a sudden absence of a queen. Comes from the brood that hatches without a present queen. they will lay unfertilized drone eggs. Sends the colony into a death spiral.

Winter hive death

When bees die during overwintering due to little honey.

Round dance

• They do donuts excitedly

• They will change directions once in a while. 

• They share nectar

• There is no directionality indicated to the dance but because the food source is so close  they probably just fly in ever-increasing circles until the local source is found. 

• The vigor ie, the speed and # of circles they do convey the quality of the food

Waggle dance

• For more-distant food

• Involves abdomen shaking during figure 8 orientation that denotes directionality. 

• There is food sharing.

• The length of the straight part, the dance tempo, the duration of waggling and noise production during the straight line section and the orientation of the straight run relative to gravity. All convey information

• The different parts of the dance indicate the energy required to get to the source, quality of the forage and direction relative to the sun's position.

scout Dance

• No food transfer occurs

• “I have a place to live” dance

• Dance indicates the quality of the spot such as the amount of sun it receives. 

• It indicates the distance and direction of the site. 

• The dance can take up to ½ hr. This is worth it because it is super important to have a good spot.

• Returning scouts will all do different dances. Then more scouts fly out to prospect and some sites are rejected. Eventually a consensus is attained. 

Varoa mites

The mite larvae consume the fat body of adult bees, not the hemolymph. This makes sense because these mites make them unable to generate heat. It also impedes other functions that the fat body does such as liver function.

Colony collapse disorder

This is more a symptom of a combination of potential factors. There are abandoned colonies with no queen or workers. They leave behind capped brood cells w/ resources. Multiple potential reasons.