Vickruck J L, Richards M H
Department of Biological Sciences, Brock University, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Behav Processes. 2017 Dec;145:73-80. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2017.10.005. Epub 2017 Oct 12.
How animals recognize conspecific individuals has important outcomes in many contexts, but interactions among group members are particularly important. Two recognition criteria are often implicated in these interactions: kin recognition is based on relatedness cues and nestmate recognition is based on familiarity. For social insects, both types of recognition are possible, as many nestmates are close kin and familiarity can develop among individuals that encounter each other repeatedly. To discern whether social insects use kin or nestmate recognition, it is necessary to simultaneously assess how relatedness and familiarity influence behaviour. The facultatively social eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, offers an excellent opportunity to study how either nestmate or kin recognition (or both) may influence interactions among nestmates, as many females disperse from their natal nests in spring, and often attempt to join new colonies that may contain unrelated individuals. This leads to frequent behavioural interactions among females that may be related or unrelated, and familiar or unfamiliar. We used observation nests and microsatellite loci to assess the influence of familiarity and relatedness on behavioural interactions during the early phase of colony development, when females establish reproductive queues prior to brood production. Females were more likely to feed and were less aggressive to familiar rather than related nestmates, regardless of their relatedness. This suggests that eastern carpenter bees primarily use learned cues to discriminate among nestmates. Interactions with nestmates were also context-dependent, as females returning to the nest without food were the recipients of more aggression than those returning with food. If spring dispersal leads to reduced relatedness in X. virginica colonies, then nestmate recognition based on familiarity would be an important factor in maintaining group cohesion.
动物如何识别同种个体在许多情况下都有重要影响，但群体成员之间的互动尤为重要。在这些互动中，通常涉及两种识别标准：亲缘识别基于亲缘线索，而巢伴识别基于熟悉程度。对于社会性昆虫来说，这两种识别都是可能的，因为许多巢伴是近亲，而且在反复相遇的个体之间会产生熟悉感。为了辨别社会性昆虫是使用亲缘识别还是巢伴识别，有必要同时评估亲缘关系和熟悉程度如何影响行为。兼性社会性的东部木蜂（Xylocopa virginica）提供了一个绝佳的机会来研究巢伴识别或亲缘识别（或两者）如何影响巢伴之间的互动，因为许多雌性在春季从它们出生的巢穴中分散出来，并且常常试图加入可能包含非亲属个体的新蜂群。这导致了雌性之间频繁的行为互动，这些雌性可能是亲属或非亲属，熟悉或不熟悉。我们使用观察巢和微卫星位点来评估在蜂群发育早期，当雌性在产卵前建立繁殖队列时，熟悉程度和亲缘关系对行为互动的影响。无论亲缘关系如何，雌性更有可能对熟悉的巢伴而非亲属巢伴进行喂食，并且攻击性更小。这表明东部木蜂主要使用习得的线索来区分巢伴。与巢伴的互动也取决于具体情境，因为没有食物返回巢穴的雌性比带着食物返回的雌性受到更多攻击。如果春季分散导致东部木蜂蜂群中的亲缘关系降低，那么基于熟悉程度的巢伴识别将是维持群体凝聚力的一个重要因素。
