Abstract
Defense castes are known from highly
eusocial insects yet have rarely been described in social species with a
small colony size. In nests of Euglossa viridissima,
an orchid bee exhibiting primitively eusocial behavior, we recorded one
subordinate female per nest that specialized in guarding in the presence
of a dominant and a second subordinate who specialized in foraging.
Guarding may have arisen as a response to cleptobiosis by conspecifics,
as nests with a guard more successfully avoided intrusion and resin
theft.
