Plasticity in Male Territoriality of a Solitary Bee Under Different Environmental Conditions
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Plasticity in Male Territoriality of a Solitary Bee Under Different Environmental Conditions R. Oliveira & A. T. Carvalho & C. Schlindwein
Revised: 30 January 2013 / Accepted: 4 February 2013 / Published online: 17 February 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Keywords Phenotypic plasticity . mating behaviour . Colletidae . Protodiscelis . Caatinga . Brazil Introduction The use of alternative male mating tactics has evolved in most insect orders. The maintenance of these tactics is often associated with discrepancy in morphological attributes of males, especially size (Brockmann 2008). In addition, variations in environmental conditions, such as heterogeneity of habitat and abiotic features (Łukasik et al. 2006; Larison 2007), and demographic conditions, such as population density (Borgia 1980; Radwan 1993; Tomkins and Brown 2004), influence the frequencies of different tactics and their average fitness benefits. Among solitary bees, the simultaneous occurrence of variation in male body size and plasticity in mate searching behaviour is relatively well documented. Larger males adopt tactics that involve struggles for direct access to receptive females in nests or for the guard of attractive floral resources, while the smaller males alternatively search for mates through nonaggressive tactics (e.g. Alcock 1996, 1997; Oliveira and Schlindwein 2010; Oliveira et al. 2012). How environmental or social conditions influence behavioural plasticity, however, has been poorly examined.
R. Oliveira (*) Departamento de Biodiversidade, Evolução e Meio Ambiente, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Campus Morro do Cruzeiro, 35400-000 Ouro Preto, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] A. T. Carvalho Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Biológicas - Zoologia, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil C. Schlindwein Departamento de Botânica, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
J Insect Behav (2013) 26:690–694
691
Protodiscelis palpalis (Ducke, 1909) (Colletidae, Paracolletinae) is a solitary bee, narrowly oligolectic on flowers of the aquatic herb Hydrocleys martti Seub. (Alismataceae) (Carvalho and Schlindwein 2011). This species is common in the semi-arid Caatinga (Brazil), but its occurrence is restricted to ephemeral water bodies supplied by irregular rainfalls (Haynes and Holm-Nielsen 1992). The breeding season of H. martti and associated bees are space-temporally defined by the availability of water bodies that do not last more than 3 months each year (Figs. 1a and 2). While searching for receptive females, males of P. palpalis in these temporary ponds are territorial on flowers of H. martti or roam among flowers without showing aggressiveness towards conspecific males. Territoriality is marked by a high rate of territory invasions, which reduces the copulation success of territorial males and by intense defence of a core area containing only a third of the flowers of the whole territory (Oliveira et al. 2012). Here, we examine the mate searching behaviour of P. pal
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