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Impact of helpers on colony productivity in a primitively eusocial bee

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Abstract

Small societies of totipotent individuals are good systems in which to study the costs and benefits of group living that are central to the origin and maintenance of eusociality. For instance, in eusocial halictid bees, some females remain in their natal nest to help rear the next brood. Why do helpers stay in the nest? Do they really help, and if yes, is their contribution large enough to voluntarily forfeit direct reproduction? Here, we estimate the impact of helpers on colony survival and productivity in the sweat bee Halictus scabiosae. The number of helpers was positively associated with colony survival and productivity. Colonies from which we experimentally removed one helper produced significantly fewer offspring. However, the effect of helper removal was very small, on average. From the removal experiment, we estimated that one helper increased colony productivity by 0.72 additional offspring in colonies with one to three helpers, while the increase was smaller and not statistically significant in larger colonies. We conclude that helpers do actually help in this primitively eusocial bee, particularly in small colonies. However, the resulting increase in colony productivity is low, which suggests that helpers may be constrained in their role or may attempt to reproduce.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Nelly di Marco, Joris Bessan, Sophie Berset, Michiel B. Djikstra, Thomas Martignier, Jérémie Projer, Aude Rogivue, Andrès Salazar Jaramillo, Luc Dolivo, Georg Hoffmann and Anabelle Reber for help in the field or the lab. We also thank Pierre Bize, Pierre Fontanillas, Anabelle Reber, Nicolas Salamin and Eric Lucas for advice on statistics; Michiel B. Djikstra for discussions on experimental set-up; and Jessica Purcell, Eric Lucas, William T. Wcislo and two anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by grant 31003A_125306 from the Swiss National Science Foundation, as well as by grants from the Fondation Herbette and the Société Académique Vaudoise.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, UNIL-Sorge, University of Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Nayuta Brand & Michel Chapuisat

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  1. Nayuta Brand
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  2. Michel Chapuisat
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Correspondence to Michel Chapuisat.

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Communicated by W. T. Wcislo

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Brand, N., Chapuisat, M. Impact of helpers on colony productivity in a primitively eusocial bee. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 68, 291–298 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1644-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1644-0

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