Henske Jonas, Fernández Otárola Mauricio, Dohrs Janosch, Eltz Thomas
Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA.
Biol Lett. 2025 Jul;21(7):20250003. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0003. Epub 2025 Jul 16.
Neotropical orchid bees are the only tribe within the corbiculate bees that does not exhibit obligate eusociality, making them an intriguing study group with regard to the evolution of social behaviour. However, finding nests is challenging, and nesting behaviour has been described only for a small fraction of the known species. Here, we present nests and kinship analyses for the aerially nesting species in Pacific lowland Costa Rica revealing a unique case of communal nest founding by multiple sister groups with no apparent social hierarchies. Within the studied nests all females were mated and the majority of foundresses contributed to the first generation offspring. We hypothesize that the elaborate nest architecture and effort associated with its construction have promoted co-founding and communal nesting in .
新热带地区的兰花蜂是携粉足蜜蜂中唯一不表现出专性真社会性的类群，这使它们成为研究社会行为进化的一个有趣的研究群体。然而，寻找巢穴具有挑战性，而且仅对一小部分已知物种描述了筑巢行为。在这里，我们展示了哥斯达黎加太平洋低地空中筑巢物种的巢穴和亲属关系分析，揭示了一个由多个姐妹群体共同建立巢穴且没有明显社会等级制度的独特案例。在所研究的巢穴中，所有雌性都已交配，并且大多数创始雌蜂对第一代后代有贡献。我们推测，精心设计的巢穴结构及其建造所需的努力促进了[该物种]的共同建巢和群居筑巢行为。
