What Animals Or Other Insects Eat Bees

Contents

• 1 Definition of eusociality
• 2 Degrees of sociality
• 3 A survey of eusocial animals
• 4 Evolution of sociality
  • 4.i Genetic explanations
  • 4.2 Ecological considerations
  • iv.3 Life history considerations
• 5 References for further reading

Definition of eusociality

Many animals live together as a group, but they are not necessarily social (eastward.thou. a schoolhouse of fish) because there is a very precise definition when information technology comes ot sociality. True sociality (eusociality) is defined by iii features: one). At that place is cooperative brood-care then it is non each ane caring for their ain offspring, 2). There is an overlapping of generations so that the group (the colony) will sustain for a while, allowing offspring assist parents during their life, and 3). That there is a reproductive division of labor, i.due east. not every individual reproduces equally in the group, in well-nigh cases of insects, this means there is i or a few reproductive(due south) ("queen", or "male monarch"), and workers are more than or less sterile.

The behemothic beloved bee (Apis dorsata) makes its nest on a single, gratis-hanging comb. This giant honey bee nest is on the eaves of a library (about 30 ft from ground). The nest is about 6 ft across. Someone has knocked a pigsty with a rock the solar day before, trying to steal some dearest. Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China. April 2002.

Degrees of sociality

Obviously not all insects are eusocial. Michener (1969) provided some other classifications of various stages of social insects:

1. Solitary: showing none of the 3 featured we mentioned above (nearly insects)
2. Subsocial: the adults care for their ain young for some period of time (cockroaches)
3. Communal: insects employ the same composite nest without cooperation in brood care (digger bees)
4. Quasisocial: use the same nest and likewise bear witness cooperative brood intendance (Euglossine bees)
5. Semisocial: in addition to the features in quasisocial, also has a worker caste (Halictid bees)
6. Eusocial: in addition to the features of semisocial, there is overlap in generations (Honey bees).

A survey of eusocial animals

A nest of baldfaced hornets (Dolichovespula maculata, Vespidae), on a crabapple tree. The nest is nigh the size of a football game, and about 8 ft high. Okemos, MI., August xi, 2003.

Eusociality was considered extremely rare in the whole animal kingdom, and even in insects it was only found in Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and Isoptera (termites). Still, recently this has expanded to a few more groups: in gall aphids (Homoptera) at that place are sterile soldiers who would sacrifice their lives to their clone sisters who can reproduce, so they are considered eusocial because these soldiers exercise not reproduce while others do. This is also the case for social thrips that are gall-forming (Thysanoptera). In 1992 a social weevil ( Austroplatypus incompertus, Curculionidae Coleoptera).was discovered. In not-insects, eusociality but appeared twice: in a mammal and a marine brute. Naked mole rats live in complex underground tunnel systems in Africa and animals in the same nest are closely related, but one female (the queen) reproduces, although workers, normally sterile, can ovulate when removed from the nest, presumably due a lack of inhibition from the queen. Snapping shrimp (Synalpheus regalis) lives inside sponges and each 'colony' has 200-300 individuals, but merely one queen reproduces, again the caster is probably not fixed — the workers remain totipotent and can potentially get a queen when the queen shrimp is removed.

The table beneath summarizes the above information. Discover that "the number of times eosociality has evolved" does not mean the number of cases of eusociality (there would be tens of thousands if then, because there are about 9 thousand species, of ants alone). Instead it means how many times it has independently evolved (for case, in that location are nine species of honey bees, if all of them shared a common eusocial ancestor, it would be considered to be evolved once here, actually you trace back to the lower branch of the taxonomic tree, and count only once at the everyman level).

Tabular array 1.1. Taxa of insects and the number of times eusociality has evolved within each.
Insect Orders	Common Names	Frequency of Development of Eusociality
Hymenoptera	Ants, bees, wasps, and	eleven
Isoptera	Termites	one
Homoptera	Gall-forming aphids	1
Coleoptera	Bark-nesting weavils	1
Thysanoptera	Gall-forming thrips	ane
Non-insects	Snapping shrimps and naked mole rats	two
Total		17

Evolution of sociality

A nest of European paper wasps (Polistes dominulus). This is an invasive species in Michigan. Information technology has get much more mutual than the grey newspaper wasp (P. fuscatus), which is not as aggressive. MSU apiary, USA. August 20, 2001.

How could eusociality evolve? Darwin, in his "Origin of Species" (1859) idea that sterile workers in a bee colony, being unable to transmit their genes, correspond a special claiming to his theory of natural selection. This is because natural selection depends on the manual of 'traits' that convey selective advantages to the individuals, and these traits accept to be determined genetically (so they are heritable). If workers are sterile, how tin can they transmit the "helping traits" to the next generation?

Genetic explanations

This problem connected to trouble biologists until William Hamilton (1964) constitute an ingenious way to explicate how a trait tin can be inherited without straight reproduction. Hamilton introduced a brave new concept, 'inclusive fitness', which basically says someone could still have a reproductive fitness, fifty-fifty if he/she has no direct offspring. This is while the 'traditional fitness' only count how many children 1 has, but inclusive fitness takes account of all others who share genes with the person (or animal). For example, I should share approximately 50% of cistron with my full brother, therefore if I decide non to marry and have kids, but I help my brother to heighten iv children, it is equivalent to myself having ii children. This inclusion of anyone elses' fettle, who shares common genes by descent, factored by a coefficient of relatedness, is called inclusive fitness. Therefore although workers do not reproduce, if they share genes with their mother (the queen) to raise more sisters (future queens), their genes would be transmitted too, to the side by side generation.

The queen and her retinue of a florea colony. Note the bee with '77' on her, which I tagged the night before. Because workers form a few layers of defunction, one has to comb through them to find the queen. This 1 took us almost 20 min to find and I just got lucky to take this articulate shot, because 2 seconds later she disappeared again. Both florea and dorsata queens tin can wing without any preparation. European and Asian honey bee queens would need to exist starved for 2-three days before they can fly because they are too fat when laying eggs.

In fact in honey bees and other hymenoptera, the relatedness among sisters are higher than amidst other animals. This is because of the haplo-diploidy sexual practice determination: drone develop from unfertilized eggs and carry i copy of chromosomes (haploid) from their mother only (no father), while females are fertilized and bear two copies of chromosomes (diploid). Haploid drones do not have the complimentary copy of genes to practise exchange (beyond the ii copies of genes, alleles), and then all the sperms produced by a single drone are identical (clones), if not considering newly produced mutations. Assume the queen is mated merely to one drone (which is not truthful, nosotros will come back to this point later), then all her daughters will share 50% genes from the father (since they are all the same), but 25% of their genes from the mother. The coefficient of relatedness among the offspring is therefore 0.75 (ane×0.v + 0.five*0.five). This is much higher than the 0.five for sister-sister in a diploid organism (such as humans). The workers who share the same father and mother, are therefore also called 'super-sisters' considering of this higher relatedness. This theory of one can laissez passer genes through relatives and proceeds fitness is chosen 'kin selection'.
Hamilton postulated that because supersisters share 75% of their genes, information technology is actually a better deal to be a worker, to whom, a new queen would accept 75% of genes past common descent with her, whereas from the queen's point of view, she just transmitted 50% of her genes to the new queen. In this sense, the inclusive fitness is actually higher for the sterile worker sisters, than for the fertile mother. Further, Hamilton argued that haplodiploidy must have played an important part in the evolution of sociality because it occurred 11 times in Hymenoptera, merely much fewer times in other organisms combined. Notation at that time the just other eusocial organisms are termites. Amidst the recently discovered social animals, thrips likewise have haplodiploidy equally in hymenopteran insects.

One difficulty with the in a higher place statement is that the honey bee queen really mates with more than one male (drone), in some cases as many as more than 30 drones, because half-sisters (workers who share the same mother, but fathered by different males) are only related to one another past 0.25 (0*0.5+0.five*0.5) the average relatedness amongst the workers in such a colony is close to the boilerplate between 0.75 and 0.25, which is 0.5, not different from other diploid organisms. Of course, 1 could argue that multiple mating is adaptive for other reasons, and arose AFTER sociality has been evolved.

Apis cerana workers on capped brood. A. cerana probably never reuses old wax for breed capping (as the mellifera exercise), since the brood capping is almost equally clean as the dearest capping.

While the genetic organisation might predispose some organisms to take eusociality, it is easy to see that haplodiploidy is neither necessary (since there are other not-haplodiploid organisms being eusocial), nor sufficient (since not every species in Hymenopetera is eusocial). It is easy to see though, that eusociality tin evolve easier in groups within which individuals are highly related, either due to haplodiploidy, or due to mating systems. In both termites and the naked mole rats, animals within a group are all highly related, perhaps due to inbreeding, although it is known in named mole rats, some males would drift to other nests to achieve periodic outcrossing, which might be necessary to reduce the cost of inbreeding. In aphids, all colony members are 'clones' because the mother can reproduce asexually (parthenogenesis). However, the marine shrimps exercise not show high degrees of inbreeding.

Ecological considerations

There announced to be common ecological features for other eusocial animals other than hymenoptera. For example, for newly discovered aphids, thrips, beetles and shrimps, they all have a ordinarily held, valuable resource (nest mounds, galls, or sponges). Queller and Strassmann (1998) distinguish these eusociality (fortress defenders) from the 'life insurers", in which cooperation creates benefits mainly through reducing the risk of reproductive failure (most Hymenoptera). Crespi (1994) argued that iii conditions are sufficient to explain occurrences of eusociality for the fortress defenders. The first is the food and shelter are in enclosed habits, representing higly valuable and long lasting resources. Because of the loftier value of the resources, there should be strong contest for these resources. Lastly, because of the contest, selection should promote effective defense among the organisms. This has been shown to be truthful for aphids, thrips and shrimps. Interestingly, in shrimps the non-reproducing soldiers are mostly male, perhaps because they have larger claws and would better arrange the job. Dissimilarity this with males in Hymenoptera societies, their other name 'drone' suggest laziness and they practise not perform work in the colony, perhaps because of their lack of weapon (no sting).

Life history considerations

The worker in the center (blurred) is performing a 'cleaning trip the light fantastic toe' to elicit grooming behavior by other workers. Extensive grooming is considered one of the traits that cerana has to fight confronting varroa mites.

Because one criteria for eusociality is overlap in generations, parental care has been recognized as an important prerequisite for eusociality. Other traits, such as high adult mortality (e.thousand. foraging honey bees just survives 7-10 days), long periods of offspring dependence (21 days evolution for dearest bee workers), and delayed age of reproduction, can favor the development of helpers. More contempo studies in marine shrimps suggest that mutualistic interactions and restricted dispersal can also foster development of sociality.

References for further reading

• Crespi, B. J. 1992 Eusociality in Australian gall thrips. Nature 359:724-726.
• Crespi, B.J. 1994. Iii conditions for the evolutions of eusociality: are they sufficient? Insectes Soc. 41: 395-400.
• Duffy, J. Eastward. 1996. Eusociality in a coral-reef shrimp. Nature 381:512-514. See likewise
• Ito, Y. 1989. The evolutionary biology of sterile soldiers in aphids. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 4:69-73.
• Ito, Y. 1994. A new epoch in articulation studies of social evolution: molecular and behavioural environmental of aphid soldiers. Trends in Ecology and Development 9:363-365.
• Kent, D. S., and J. A. Simpson 1992. Eusociality in the beetle Austroplatypus incompertus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Naturwissenschaften 79:86-87.
• Jarvis,JUM 1981 Eusociality in a mammal: Cooperative breeding in naked mole-rat colonies. Science 212, 571-573.
• Queller D.C; Strassmann, J.Due east. 1998. Kin selection and social insects: social insects provide the most surprising predictions and satisfying tests of kin selection. Bioscience. 48,165—175
• Rypstra, A. L. 1993. Prey size, social competition, and the development of reproductive segmentation of labor in social spider groups. American Naturalist 142:868-880.
• Strassman, J. E., Z. Zhu, and D. C. Queller 2000. Altruism and social cheating in the social amoeba Dictyostlium discoideum. Nature 408:965-967.

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Source:
The above text was written past Zachary Huang, Dept. Entomology, Michigan State University.

Source: https://bee-health.extension.org/bees-and-social-insects/

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