Nature Communications (Apr 2018)

Spatial fidelity of workers predicts collective response to disturbance in a social insect

  • James D. Crall,
  • Nick Gravish,
  • Andrew M. Mountcastle,
  • Sarah D. Kocher,
  • Robert L. Oppenheimer,
  • Naomi E. Pierce,
  • Stacey A. Combes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03561-w
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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How do social insect colonies regulate tasks after the developmental stage and in response to changing environments? Here, Crall et al. use automated individual tracking to reveal that task switching after a major colony disturbance helps to maintain collective foraging performance in bumble bees.