Abstract
Defense castes are know from highly eusocial insects yet have rarely been described in social species with a small colony size. In nests of Euglossa viridissima, an orchid bee exhibiting primitively eusocial behavior, we recorded one subordinate female per nest to specialize in guarding in the presence of a dominant and a second subordinate who specialized in foraging. Guarding may have arisen as a response to cleptobiosis by conspecifics, as nests with a guard more successfully avoided intrusion and resin theft.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank, Luis Medina Medina and Willian May-Itzá for assistance, the reviewers and editor for helpful comments on the manuscript, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg for logistic help and the Science without Borders Program of the CNPq of Brazil (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientítico e Tecnológico) for funding the first author.
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Boff, S., Forfert, N., Paxton, R.J. et al. A behavioral guard caste in a primitively eusocial orchid bee, Euglossa viridissima, helps defend the nest against resin theft by conspecifics. Insect. Soc. 62, 247–249 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-015-0397-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-015-0397-3