Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/7307
Appears in Collections:Biological and Environmental Sciences Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Repellent scent-marking of flowers by a guild of foraging bumblebees (Bombus spp.)
Author(s): Stout, Jane C
Goulson, Dave
Allen, John A
Contact Email: dave.goulson@stir.ac.uk
Keywords: tarsal secretion
floral rewards
pheromone
Symphytum officinale
Bumblebees Behavior
Bees Behavior
Insect baits and repellants
Issue Date: Oct-1998
Date Deposited: 1-Aug-2012
Citation: Stout JC, Goulson D & Allen JA (1998) Repellent scent-marking of flowers by a guild of foraging bumblebees (Bombus spp.). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 43 (4-5), pp. 317-326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s002650050497
Abstract: We have found that foraging bumblebees (Bombus hortorum, B. pascuorum, B. pratorum and B.␣terrestris) not only avoid flowers of Symphytum officinale that have recently been visited by conspecifics but also those that have been recently visited by heterospecifics. We propose that the decision whether to reject or accept a flower is influenced by a chemical odour that is left on the corolla by a forager, which temporarily repels subsequent foragers. Honeybees and carpenter bees have previously been shown to use similar repellent forage-marking scents. We found that flowers were repellent to other bumblebee foragers for approximately 20 min and also that after this time nectar levels in S. officinale flowers had largely replenished. Thus bumblebees could forage more efficiently by avoiding flowers with low rewards. Flowers to which extracts of tarsal components were applied were more often rejected by wild B. terrestris workers than flowers that had head extracts applied, which in turn were more often rejected than flowers that had body extracts applied. Extracts from four Bombus species were equally repellent to foragers. The sites of production of the repellent scent and its evolutionary origins are discussed.
DOI Link: 10.1007/s002650050497
Rights: The publisher does not allow this work to be made publicly available in this Repository. Please use the Request a Copy feature at the foot of the Repository record to request a copy directly from the author. You can only request a copy if you wish to use this work for your own research or private study.
Licence URL(s): http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/under-embargo-all-rights-reserved

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
stout_repellantscentmarking_1998.pdfFulltext - Published Version424.51 kBAdobe PDFUnder Embargo until 3000-01-01    Request a copy

Note: If any of the files in this item are currently embargoed, you can request a copy directly from the author by clicking the padlock icon above. However, this facility is dependent on the depositor still being contactable at their original email address.



This item is protected by original copyright



Items in the Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

The metadata of the records in the Repository are available under the CC0 public domain dedication: No Rights Reserved https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

If you believe that any material held in STORRE infringes copyright, please contact library@stir.ac.uk providing details and we will remove the Work from public display in STORRE and investigate your claim.