The role of wax and resin in the nestmate recognition system of a stingless bee, Tetragonisca angustula
@article{Jones2011TheRO, title={The role of wax and resin in the nestmate recognition system of a stingless bee, Tetragonisca angustula}, author={Sam M. Jones and Jelle S. van Zweden and Christoph Gr{\"u}ter and Cristiano Menezes and Denise Araujo Alves and Patr{\'i}cia Nunes-Silva and Tomer J. Czaczkes and Vera Lucia Imperatriz-Fonseca and Francis L. W. Ratnieks}, journal={Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology}, year={2011}, volume={66}, pages={1-12} }
Recent research has shown that entrance guards of the stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula make less errors in distinguishing nestmates from non-nestmates than all other bee species studied to date, but how they achieve this is unknown. We performed four experiments to investigate nestmate recognition by entrance guards in T. angustula. We first investigated the effect of colony odours on acceptance. Nestmates that acquired odour from non-nestmate workers were 63% more likely to be rejected…
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