scholarly journals Nest wax triggers worker reproduction in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 150599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Marie Rottler-Hoermann ◽  
Stefan Schulz ◽  
Manfred Ayasse
Keyword(s):  
Ovarian Development ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Worker Reproduction ◽  
Colony Development ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dominance Behaviour ◽  
High Level ◽  
Primitively Eusocial

Social insects are well known for their high level of cooperation. Workers of the primitively eusocial bumblebee Bombus terrestris are able to produce male offspring in the presence of a queen. Nonetheless, they only compete for reproduction, in the so-called competition phase, when the workforce is large enough to support the rearing of reproductives. So far, little is known about the proximate mechanisms underlying the shift between altruism and selfish behaviour in bumblebee workers. In this study, we have examined the influence of chemical cues from the nest wax on the onset of worker reproduction. Chemical analyses of wax extracts have revealed that the patterns and amounts of cuticular lipids change considerably during colony development. These changes in wax scent mirror worker abundance and the presence of fertile workers. In bioassays with queen-right worker groups, wax affects the dominance behaviour and ovarian development of workers. When exposed to wax from a colony in competition phase, workers start to compete for reproduction. We suggest that wax scent enables workers to time their reproduction by providing essential information concerning the social condition of the colony.

scholarly journals Hormonal and Pheromonal Regulation of Reproduction in the Bumble Bee Bombus terrestris

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Hefetz ◽  
Gene Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Ovarian Development ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Worker Reproduction ◽  
Colony Development ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Before And After ◽  
High Aggression ◽  
Total Body ◽  
Virgin Queens ◽  
The Brain

Bombus terrestris constitute important pollinators of greenhouse crops. In Israel the species utilized is, whose colonies are reared commercially. This is a primitively social species with a particular colony development. It encompasses two social phases: a eusocial phase in which the queen dominates reproduction, and a competition phase in which workers compete with the queen for the parentage of males. These workers are distinguished by accelerated ovarian development, high production of JH, and elevated levels of dopamine in the brain. Queen-worker conflict is also manifested in overt aggression among all members of the nest. High aggression is correlated with dominance status of the bees and is also correlated with octopamine levels in the brain. After verifying that JH III is the only JH produced by the bees and validating the assay for its measurements (RCA & RIA), we used JH as an indicator of worker reproduction. Queens taken from colonies both before and after the competition phase were equally effective in inhibiting worker reproduction. Moreover, there is only a narrow window, around the competition point, in which workers may have the opportunity to initiate reproduction. Before that point they are inhibited by the dominant queen, while after that point both the queen and those workers with accelerated ovarian development exert strong inhibition on worker nest mates. Thus, "queen dominance deterioration" is not the primary cause in eliciting the queen-worker conflict. Queens convey their presence by means of a chemical signal that is extractable in organic solvent and that is normally spread on the cuticle. Total body extract and body washes, applied on dead virgin queens, were able to inhibit the release of JHin vitro in queenless workers. However, none of the prominent exocrine gland investigated mimicked this function. It is possible that the source of the putative pheromone is an unknown gland, or that it emanates from an assembly of glands. Chemical analyses of the prominent glands revealed a plethora of compounds the function of which should be further investigated. Understanding the social behavior of B. terrestris paves the way to facilitate colony manipulation and to adjust the colonies for specific pollination requirements.

scholarly journals Worker-Born Males Are Smaller but Have Similar Reproduction Ability to Queen-Born Males in Bumblebees

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1008
Author(s):  
Huiyue Zhao ◽  
Yanjie Liu ◽  
Hong Zhang ◽  
Tom D. Breeze ◽  
Jiandong An
Keyword(s):  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Worker Reproduction ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Colony Development ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Reproductive Ability ◽  
Evolution Of Sociality ◽  
Sperm Counts ◽  
Virgin Queens

Queen-worker conflict over the reproduction of males exists in the majority of haplodiplioidy hymenpteran species such as bees, wasps, and ants, whose workers lose mating ability but can produce haploid males in colony. Bumblebee is one of the representatives of primitively eusocial insects with plastic division labor and belongs to monandrous and facultative low polyandry species that have reproductive totipotent workers, which are capable of competing with mother queen to produce haploid males in the queenright colony compared to higher eusocial species, e.g., honeybees. So, bumblebees should be a better material to study worker reproduction, but the reproductive characteristics of worker-born males (WMs) remain unclear. Here, we choose the best-studied bumblebee Bombus terrestris to evaluate the morphological characteristics and reproductive ability of WMs from the queenless micro-colonies. The sexually matured WMs showed smaller in forewing length and weight, relatively less sperm counts but equally high sperm viability in comparison with the queen-born males (QMs) of the queenright colony. Despite with smaller size, the WMs are able to successfully mate with the virgin queens in competition with the QMs under laboratory conditions, which is quite different from the honeybees reported. In addition, there was no difference in the colony development, including the traits such as egg-laying rate, colony establishment rate, and populations of offspring, between the WM- and the QM-mated queens. Our study highlights the equivalent reproductive ability of worker-born males compared to that of queens, which might exhibit a positive application or special use of bumblebee rearing, especially for species whose males are not enough for copulation. Further, our finding contributes new evidence to the kin selection theory and suggests worker reproduction might relate to the evolution of sociality in bees.

scholarly journals Social brains, simple minds: does social complexity really require cognitive complexity?

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1480) ◽  
pp. 561-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Barrett ◽  
Peter Henzi ◽  
Drew Rendall
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Proximate Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Mind

The social brain hypothesis is a well-accepted and well-supported evolutionary theory of enlarged brain size in the non-human primates. Nevertheless, it tends to emphasize an anthropocentric view of social life and cognition. This often leads to confusion between ultimate and proximate mechanisms, and an over-reliance on a Cartesian, narratively structured view of the mind and social life, which in turn lead to views of social complexity that are congenial to our views of ourselves, rather than necessarily representative of primate social worlds. In this paper, we argue for greater attention to embodied and distributed theories of cognition, which get us away from current fixations on ‘theory of mind’ and other high-level anthropocentric constructions, and allow for the generation of testable hypotheses that combine neurobiology, psychology and behaviour in a mutually reinforcing manner.

What Can We Learn From Factorial Surveys About Human Behavior?

Methodology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Petzold ◽  
Tobias Wolbring
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Behavioral Intentions ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Factorial Survey ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Intended Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
High Level

Abstract. Factorial survey experiments are increasingly used in the social sciences to investigate behavioral intentions. The measurement of self-reported behavioral intentions with factorial survey experiments frequently assumes that the determinants of intended behavior affect actual behavior in a similar way. We critically investigate this fundamental assumption using the misdirected email technique. Student participants of a survey were randomly assigned to a field experiment or a survey experiment. The email informs the recipient about the reception of a scholarship with varying stakes (full-time vs. book) and recipient’s names (German vs. Arabic). In the survey experiment, respondents saw an image of the same email. This validation design ensured a high level of correspondence between units, settings, and treatments across both studies. Results reveal that while the frequencies of self-reported intentions and actual behavior deviate, treatments show similar relative effects. Hence, although further research on this topic is needed, this study suggests that determinants of behavior might be inferred from behavioral intentions measured with survey experiments.

ПРАГМАТИЧНИЙ ПОТЕНЦІАЛ НАТИВНОЇ РЕКЛАМИ: ФОРМИ, ТРЕНДИ (НА ПРИКЛАДІ НАТИВНОГО КОНТЕНТУ В СОЦІАЛЬНІЙ МЕРЕЖІ FACEBOOK ЩОДО БРЕНДА ФАКУЛЬТЕТУ ЖУРНАЛІСТИКИ ЗНУ)

2020 ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
V. Kovpak ◽  
N. Trotsenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Professional Training ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
The Social ◽  
National University ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

<div><p><em>The article analyzes the peculiarities of the format of native advertising in the media space, its pragmatic potential (in particular, on the example of native content in the social network Facebook by the brand of the journalism department of ZNU), highlights the types and trends of native advertising. The following research methods were used to achieve the purpose of intelligence: descriptive (content content, including various examples), comparative (content presentation options) and typological (types, trends of native advertising, in particular, cross-media as an opportunity to submit content in different formats (video, audio, photos, text, infographics, etc.)), content analysis method using Internet services (using Popsters service). And the native code for analytics was the page of the journalism department of Zaporizhzhya National University on the social network Facebook. After all, the brand of the journalism department of Zaporozhye National University in 2019 celebrates its 15th anniversary. The brand vector is its value component and professional training with balanced distribution of theoretical and practical blocks (seven practices), student-centered (democratic interaction and high-level teacher-student dialogue) and integration into Ukrainian and world educational process (participation in grant programs).</em></p></div><p><em>And advertising on social networks is also a kind of native content, which does not appear in special blocks, and is organically inscribed on one page or another and unobtrusively offers, just remembering the product as if «to the word». Popsters service functionality, which evaluates an account (or linked accounts of one person) for 35 parameters, but the main three areas: reach or influence, or how many users evaluate, comment on the recording; true reach – the number of people affected; network score – an assessment of the audience’s response to the impact, or how far the network information diverges (how many share information on this page).</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> nativeness, native advertising, branded content, special project, communication strategy.</em></p>

Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 276-292
Author(s):  
J. E. Penner
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bundle Of Rights ◽  
High Level

This chapter discusses property law. It considers the idea that property had a “nominalist” ontology, and it was in danger of “disintegration” as a working legal category for that very reason. Nominalism about property has had a significant impact in U.S. case law. The concern here, however, is whether it is a helpful stance to take as a theorist of property. The chapter argues that it is not. There are indeed “high” level abstractions about property which one cannot plausibly do without if one is to understand property rights and property law doctrine. Moreover, the “bundle of rights” (BOR) challenge does not assist one in making sense of these abstractions. The chapter then looks at the conceptual failure of BOR and the New Private Law as it relates to property. BOR is generally regarded as being underpinned by what might be called the Hohfeld-Honoré synthesis. The synthesis rests upon a fairly serious mistake, which is that while the Hohfeldian examination of jural norms is analytic if it is anything, Honor’s elaboration of the incidents making up ownership is anything but—it is functional. This means that Honoré describes the situation of the owner not principally in terms of his Hohfeldian powers, duties, and rights vis-à-vis others, but in terms of the social or economic advantages that an owner has by virtue of his position, and the terms and limitations of those advantages.

A proposal to enhance national capability to manage epidemics: The critical importance of expert statistical input including official statistics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
N.I. Fisher ◽  
D.J. Trewin
Keyword(s):  
Data Streams ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Economic Welfare ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Novel Virus ◽  
High Level ◽  
Integration Analysis

Given the high level of global mobility, pandemics are likely to be more frequent, and with potentially devastating consequences for our way of life. With COVID-19, Australia is in relatively better shape than most other countries and is generally regarded as having managed the pandemic well. That said, we believe there is a critical need to start the process of learning from this pandemic to improve the quantitative information and related advice provided to policy makers. A dispassionate assessment of Australia’s health and economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic reveals some important inadequacies in the data, statistical analysis and interpretation used to guide Australia’s preparations and actions. For example, one key shortcoming has been the lack of data to obtain an early understanding of the extent of asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic cases or the differences across age groups, occupations or ethnic groups. Minimising the combined health, social and economic impacts of a novel virus depends critically on ongoing acquisition, integration, analysis, interpretation and presentation of a variety of data streams to inform the development, execution and monitoring of appropriate strategies. The article captures the essential quantitative components of such an approach for each of the four basic phases, from initial detection to post-pandemic. It also outlines the critical steps in each stage to enable policy makers to deal more efficiently and effectively with future such events, thus enhancing both the social and the economic welfare of its people. Although written in an Australian context, we believe most elements would apply to other countries as well.

Der Raum der Vorlesung: Vom Auditorium zum „multi media hub“

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-701
Author(s):  
Heiko Hausendorf ◽  
Kenan Hochuli ◽  
Johanna Jud ◽  
Alexandra Zoller
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Lecture Hall ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multi Media ◽  
High Level

Abstract The present paper is concerned with the lecture hall as the natural home of lecturing. We will focus on constructed, designed and equipped space as a material and communicative manifestation of science which fundamentally contributes to the multimodal practice of lecturing. Taking an interactionist point of view, we start off with introducing our concept of architecture-for-interaction which aims at spatial built-in features as a resource for social interaction, namely for situational anchoring among those present. In a second step, we identify key architectural elements of the lecture hall as material sediments of communicative problems connected with the social practice of lecturing. In doing so, we will also give a high-level overview of the historical development of the lecture hall (and its precursors) since the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. Turning to current data from lecturing in times of the pandemic, we will then deal with so called „ghost lectures“ behind closed doors. This current development brings out a refiguration process due to which the lecture hall undergoes a change from the classical auditorium with copresent participants to a multi-media hub allowing for tele-present participants.

TO THE DYNAMICS OF THE NEED FOR STUDENTS' COMMUNICATION ACTIVITY COMPONENT AT THE PHARMACEUTICAL FACULTY OF VSMU

2021 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-105
Author(s):  
A. L. Tserkovskiy ◽  
◽  
O. I. Gapova ◽  
E. A. Skorikova ◽  
S. A. Petrovich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Average Level ◽  
Psychological Service ◽  
Activity Component ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communication Activity ◽  
The One ◽  
High Level

The purpose of this research is to study the need for the students' communication activity component at the Pharmaceutical faculty of VSMU. Dual feature of the levels indicators dynamics in the need for communication is revealed. On the one hand, there is a tendency to reduce the average level in the need for communication and to increase its high level at the expense of girls. On the other hand, there is a fairly significant increase in the average level in the need for communication among young men against the background of an obvious predominance of the average level in the need for communication among the students of the entire sampling. The study allows us to state obvious influence of the informational educational environment at VSMU on the personal growth of students at the Pharmaceutical faculty, on the formation of their communicative competence as the most important component of the professional competence of future pharmacists. The results of the study can be used in the educational process of VSMU, in the activities of the social and pedagogical and psychological service, in the work of educators in academic groups and for tutors.

Immersion, interactivity and three-dimensionality: virtual reality documentation of media art installations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira A. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Media Art ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
Art Installation ◽  
High Level

This research paper explores the possibilities for virtual reality (VR) documentation of media art installations. Based on an analysis of the characteristics of media art, and a survey of current documentation strategies, this paper investigates the viability of three-dimensional documentation. Four cross-disciplinary case studies are presented and analysed to demonstrate that VR documentation provides an immersive and richer reconstruction of a media art installation in three dimensions. In addition, the interactive components can be simulated within the VR environment, offering the possibility for curators and visitors to virtually re-experience the artwork. The case studies show that, although the creation of VR documentation can be costly and time-consuming, and currently requires a high-level of expertise, it can be a useful addition to established documentation strategies by providing essential information about the visual aspects of the artwork, its environment and the user’s multi-sensory experience.

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