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Worker longevity in an Amazonian Melipona (Apidae, Meliponini) species: effects of season and age at foraging onset

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Abstract

We studied the relationship between worker longevity and the age of foraging onset in the bee Melipona fasciculata, as well as the longevity oscillation in the rainy and dry seasons. Workers that emerged in the rainy season started to forage later and lived at least 50 % longer than foragers from the dry season. In both periods, a higher longevity was observed in workers that started to forage earlier in life but did not forage all days of their careers. We also showed, by using a Weibull model, that workers experienced higher mortalities at older ages in the rainy season, but the same model did not fit with the data from the dry season. This lack of fit in the dry season can be explained by the high mortality of workers that did not start to forage in this season and to other intrinsic factors of the colonies. Thus, the age of foraging onset and internal colonial factors must be considered in studies examining worker longevity in free-foraging colonies in this diverse group of eusocial bees.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for the graduate fellowship granted to the first author and the Prorectory for Research of the Federal University of Pará (PROPESP/UFPA) for the high-level publication program (PAPQ). We thank the staff of Embrapa Amazônia Oriental for technical support during the experiments, the referees for their valuable suggestions, Dr. Anita Stone (Eastern Michigan University) for linguistic advice, Dr. Giorgio Cristino Venturieri (Embrapa Amazônia Oriental) for providing us the bee colonies, and Dr. Antônio Lola for providing us with the rainfall data (Climurb Project; IG/UFPA/CNPq).

Longévité des ouvrières chez une espèce amazonienne de Melipona (Apidae, Meliponini): effets de la saison et de l’âge au début de l’activité de butinage

Melipona fasciculata / abeille sans aiguillon / mortalité / courbe de survie / modèle de Weibull

Lebensdauer der Arbeiterinnen einer amazonischen Melipona -Art (Apidae, Meliponini): Saisonale Effekte und Einfluss des Alter während des Sammelbeginns

Melipona fasciculata / Stachellose Bienen / Mortalität / Lebensdauerkurven / Weibul Modell

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Biologia e Ecologia de Abelhas, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Campus Universitário do Guamá, Rua Augusto Corrêa, n°1, Belém, Pará, Brazil, CEP: 66075-110

    Rafael Leandro Corrêa Gomes & Felipe Andrés León Contrera

  2. Laboratório de Botânica, Embrapa Amazônia Oriental, Trav. Dr. Enéas Pinheiro s/n°, Caixa Postal, 48, Belém, Pará, Brazil, CEP 66095-100

    Cristiano Menezes

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  1. Rafael Leandro Corrêa Gomes
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  2. Cristiano Menezes
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  3. Felipe Andrés León Contrera
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Correspondence to Felipe Andrés León Contrera.

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Manuscript editor: James Nieh

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Gomes, R.L.C., Menezes, C. & Contrera, F.A.L. Worker longevity in an Amazonian Melipona (Apidae, Meliponini) species: effects of season and age at foraging onset. Apidologie 46, 133–143 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-014-0309-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-014-0309-y

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