Neumann Peter, Naef Jan, Crailsheim Karl, Crewe Robin M, Pirk Christian W W
Social Insect research Group Department of Zoology and Entomology University of Pretoria 0002 Pretoria South Africa; Institute of Bee Health Vetsuisse Faculty University of Bern 3003 Bern Switzerland.
Institut für Zoologie Universität Graz Universitätsplatz 2 8010 Graz Austria.
Ecol Evol. 2015 Nov 6;5(23):5478-86. doi: 10.1002/ece3.1806. eCollection 2015 Dec.
Some parasites of social insects are able to exploit the exchange of food between nestmates via trophallaxis, because they are chemically disguised as nestmates. However, a few parasites succeed in trophallactic solicitation although they are attacked by workers. The underlying mechanisms are not well understood. The small hive beetle (=SHB), Aethina tumida, is such a parasite of honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies and is able to induce trophallaxis. Here, we investigate whether SHB trophallactic solicitation is innate and affected by sex and experience. We quantified characteristics of the trophallactic solicitation in SHBs from laboratory-reared individuals that were either bee-naïve or had 5 days experience. The data clearly show that SHB trophallactic solicitation is innate and further suggest that it can be influenced by both experience and sex. Inexperienced SHB males begged more often than any of the other groups had longer breaks than their experienced counterparts and a longer soliciting duration than both experienced SHB males and females, suggesting that they start rather slowly and gain more from experience. Successful experienced females and males were not significantly different from each other in relation to successful trophallactic interactions, but had a significantly shorter soliciting duration compared to all other groups, except successful inexperienced females. Trophallactic solicitation success, feeding duration and begging duration were not significantly affected by either SHB sex or experience, supporting the notion that these behaviors are important for survival in host colonies. Overall, success seems to be governed by quality rather than quantity of interactions, thereby probably limiting both SHB energy investment and chance of injury (<1%). Trophallactic solicitation by SHBs is a singular example for an alternative strategy to exploit insect societies without requiring chemical disguise. Hit-and-run trophallaxis is an attractive test system to get an insight into trophallaxis in the social insects.
一些群居昆虫的寄生虫能够通过交哺行为利用巢友之间的食物交换，因为它们在化学特征上伪装成了巢友。然而，有少数寄生虫尽管会受到工蚁的攻击，但仍能成功进行交哺诱导。其潜在机制尚未得到充分理解。小蜂螨（Aethina tumida）就是蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）蜂群的这样一种寄生虫，它能够诱导交哺行为。在此，我们研究小蜂螨的交哺诱导行为是否是天生的，以及是否受性别和经验的影响。我们对实验室饲养的小蜂螨的交哺诱导行为特征进行了量化，这些小蜂螨要么没有接触过蜜蜂，要么有5天的接触经验。数据清楚地表明，小蜂螨的交哺诱导行为是天生的，并且进一步表明它会受到经验和性别的影响。没有经验的小蜂螨雄虫比其他任何群体都更频繁地乞食，休息时间比有经验的同类更长，乞食持续时间比有经验的小蜂螨雄虫和雌虫都长，这表明它们开始时速度较慢，从经验中获益更多。成功的有经验的雌虫和雄虫在成功的交哺互动方面没有显著差异，但与所有其他群体相比，除了成功的没有经验的雌虫外，它们的乞食持续时间显著更短。交哺诱导的成功率、进食持续时间和乞食持续时间均未受到小蜂螨性别或经验的显著影响，这支持了这些行为对在宿主蜂群中生存很重要的观点。总体而言，成功似乎取决于互动的质量而非数量，从而可能限制了小蜂螨的能量投入和受伤几率（<1%）。小蜂螨的交哺诱导行为是一个独特的例子，展示了一种无需化学伪装就能利用昆虫群体的替代策略。打了就跑的交哺行为是一个有吸引力的测试系统，可以深入了解群居昆虫的交哺行为。
