Sucrose responsiveness and behavioral plasticity in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

Ricarda Scheiner , Robert Page , Joachim Erber

This review will focus on the relationships between sensory responses of bees and behavior. Sensory responsiveness constrains individual foraging plasticity and skews collective foraging decisions of colonies. We will concentrate on pollen, nectar, and water foraging behavior and will show that differences in the sucrose responsiveness of bees correlate with different behavioral roles, which supports the response threshold model of division of labor. We will also show how a colony's "allocation" of foragers into foraging roles results from individual differences in responsiveness to task-related stimuli and discuss hypotheses on the behavioral relevance of these differences.

Mots clés: sucrose responsiveness; foraging behavior; collective decision; response threshold model; behavioral plasticity

Domaines: Zoologie des invertébrés; Biodiversité; Ecologie, Environnement; Science des productions animales

Ricarda Scheiner, Robert Page, Joachim Erber. Sucrose responsiveness and behavioral plasticity in honey bees (Apis mellifera). Apidologie, 2004, 35 (2), pp.133-142. ⟨10.1051/apido:2004001⟩. ⟨hal-00891876⟩