ambient air temperature does not predict whether small or large workers forage in bumble bees (bombus impatiens)环境空气温度不预测小型或大型工人在大黄蜂饲料(bombus凤仙花).pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Psyche Volume 2010, Article ID 536430, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2010/536430 Research Article Ambient Air Temperature Does Not Predict whether Small or Large Workers Forage in Bumble Bees (Bombus impatiens ) Margaret J. Couvillon,1, 2 Ginny Fitzpatrick,1 and Anna Dornhaus1 1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA 2 Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK Correspondence should be addressed to Anna Dornhaus, dornhaus@ Received 12 August 2009; Accepted 6 October 2009 Academic Editor: James C. Nieh Copyright © 2010 Margaret J. Couvillon et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Bumble bees are important pollinators of crops and other plants. However, many aspects of their basic biology remain relatively unexplored. For example, one important and unusual natural history feature in bumble bees is the massive size variation seen between workers of the same nest. This size polymorphism may be an adaptation for division of labor, colony economics, or be nonadaptive. It was also suggested that perhaps this variation allows for niche specialization in workers foraging at different temperatures: larger bees might be better suited to forage at cooler temperatures and smaller bees might be better suited to forage at warmer temperatures. This we tested here using a large, enclosed growth chamber, where we were able to regulate the ambient temperature. We found no significant effect of ambient or nest temperature