martes, 31 de marzo de 2015

 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.


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