Nature Communications (Feb 2021)

Social networks predict the life and death of honey bees

  • Benjamin Wild,
  • David M. Dormagen,
  • Adrian Zachariae,
  • Michael L. Smith,
  • Kirsten S. Traynor,
  • Dirk Brockmann,
  • Iain D. Couzin,
  • Tim Landgraf

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21212-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

Read online

Honey bee workers take on different tasks for the colony as they age. Here, the authors develop a method to extract a descriptor of the individuals’ social networks and show that interaction patterns predict task allocation and distinguish different developmental trajectories.