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The use of heterospecific scent marks by the sweat bee Halictus aerarius

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Abstract

To forage effectively amongst flowers, some bee species utilize olfactory cues left by previous visitors in addition to direct assessment of visual cues to identify rewarding flowers. This ability can be more advantageous if the bees can recognize and use scent marks left by heterospecifics, not just marks left by members of their own species. We conducted field experiments to investigate whether the sweat bee Halictus aerarius avoids visiting flowers of trailing water willow Justicia procumbens emptied by other bee species. We found that H. aerarius rejected the flowers visited by both heterospecifics and conspecifics. They also rejected visited flowers artificially replenished with nectar. Our results demonstrate that social bees outside the Apidae can detect marks left on flowers by heterospecifics but that (on this plant species) they are unable to discriminate against flowers by directly detecting nectar volume. H. aerarius exhibited different rejection rates according to the identity of the previous bee species. We suggest that the frequency of rejection responses may depend on the amount of chemical substances left by the previous bee. In general, the use of scent marks left by previous visitors is almost certainly advantageous, enabling foragers to avoid flowers with depleted nectar levels and thereby improving their foraging efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to B. Darvill, T. Nishida and members of our laboratory for helpful comments and criticisms to the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the 21st century COE program for Innovative Food and Environmental Studies Pioneered by Entomomimetic Sciences, from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa, Sakyo, 606-8502, Kyoto, Japan

    Tomoyuki Yokoi & Kenji Fujisaki

  2. School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK

    Dave Goulson

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  1. Tomoyuki Yokoi
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  2. Dave Goulson
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  3. Kenji Fujisaki
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Correspondence to Tomoyuki Yokoi.

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Yokoi, T., Goulson, D. & Fujisaki, K. The use of heterospecific scent marks by the sweat bee Halictus aerarius . Naturwissenschaften 94, 1021–1024 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-007-0285-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-007-0285-4

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