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Rescheduling in a hybrid flowshop holds significant importance in modern industries that face uncertain events. Moreover, real-world manufacturing scenarios often utilise lot streaming to enhance market competitiveness. In light of escalating energy demands and their consequential environmental impacts, contemporary manufacturing companies are placing a heightened emphasis on energy efficiency. This study addressed a green hybrid flowshop rescheduling problem with consistent sublots (GHFRP_CS) in the context of urgent lot insertion. Initially, we establish an optimisation model aimed at minimising the makespan, total energy consumption, and system stability. To tackle this NP-hard multi-objective optimization problem, we develop a constructive heuristic generating promising solutions based on lot split, sequence, and local search rules. Further improvement is achieved through a multi-objective discrete artificial bee colony algorithm (MDABC). MDABC decomposes the problem into sub-problems, initiating solutions with the constructive heuristic and refining them through employed bee, onlooker bee, and scout bee phases. Computational experiments compare MDABC with other multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) on small- and large-scale problems. Results demonstrate MDABC's superiority, achieving fourfold accuracy and efficiency enhancement for small-scale instances and sixfold improvement for large-scale problems at low cost compared to other MOEAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business schools increasingly need to demonstrate the societal impact of their activities to a broad range of stakeholders, both internal and external. With societal impact being a hard-to-measure performance dimension, business school deans find it challenging to create societal impact governance processes that reconcile multiple legitimate perceptions of what societal impact is. The result is that individual-level societal impacts (influences on society attributed to individual employees) are not aggregated into organizational-level societal impact (influence attributed to an organization) in ways that are effective and legitimate. In this paper, we develop a model that provides insights into the process of legitimation for societal impact governance at the organizational level. We address the emergence of different types of legitimacy and the sequencing of legitimation stages that reduces internal decoupling and increases the perception of procedural justice. In a practical sense, our model helps in designing a decision-making process that addresses what societal impact is, how to measure it, and how much should be spent on its measurement. We develop and share a set of tools and frameworks that can be used to support the legitimation of societal impact evaluation and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid flow shop scheduling problem (HFSP) with real-life constraints has been extensively considered; however, HFSP with batch processing machines (BPM) at a middle stage is seldom investigated. In this study, HFSP with BPM at a middle stage in hot & cold casting process is considered and an adaptive artificial bee colony (AABC) is proposed to minimise makespan. To produce high quality solutions, an adaptive search process with employed bee phase and adaptive search step is implemented. Adaptive search step, which may be onlooker bee phase or cooperation or empty, is decided by evolution quality and an adaptive threshold. Cooperation is performed between the improved solutions of one employed bee swarm and the unimproved solutions of another swarm. Six search operators are constructed and search operator is adaptively adjusted. A new scout phase is also given. A lower bound is provided and proved. Extensive experiments are conducted. The computational results validate that new strategies such as cooperation are effective and efficient and AABC can obtain better results than methods from existing literature on the considered problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial light at night (ALAN) changes animal behavior in multiple invertebrates and vertebrates and can result in decreased fitness. However, ALAN effects have not been studied in European honey bees (Apis mellifera), an important pollinator in which foragers show strong circadian rhythmicity. Colonies can be exposed to ALAN in swarm clusters, when bees cluster outside the nest on hot days and evenings, and, in limited cases, when they build nests in the open. We captured and maintained foragers in incubated cages and subjected them to constant light (LL), constant dark (DD), or 12 h light:12 h dark (LD) cycle, and observed them with infrared cameras. After 79 h, there was a significant interaction of treatment and time because LL bees slept less. In detail, the bees maintained a regular sleep pattern for three days but LL bees showed a shift on the fourth day. LL bees had the largest sleep differences from LD controls, with trends of lengthened periods and increased phase misalignment from both LD and DD bees. LL bees also experienced significantly more disturbances from their nestmates and preferred to sleep in the lower portion of the cages, which had significantly lower light intensity. These findings suggest that ALAN can disrupt the sleep of honey bee foragers, which has implications for their behavior and overall colony health.

Managed colonies of the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, have faced considerable losses in recent years. A widespread contributing factor is a microsporidian pathogen, Nosema ceranae, which occurs worldwide, is increasingly resistant to antibiotic treatment, and can alter the hosts immune response and nutritional uptake. These obligate gut pathogens share their environment with a natural honey bee microbiome whose composition can affect pathogen resistance. We tested the effect of N. ceranae infection on this microbiome by feeding 5 day-old adult bees that had natural, fully developed microbiomes with live N. ceranae spores (40,000 per bee) or a sham inoculation, sterile 2.0 M sucrose solution. We caged and reared these bees in a controlled lab environment and tracked their mortality over 12 d, after which we dissected them, measured their infection levels (gut spore counts), and analyzed their microbiomes. Bees fed live spores had two-fold higher mortality by 12 d and 36.5-fold more spores per bee than controls. There were also strong colony effects on infection levels, and 9% of spore-inoculated bees had no spore counts at all (defined as fed-spores-but-not-infected). Nosema ceranae infection had significant but subtle effects on the gut microbiomes of experimentally infected bees, bees with different infection levels, and fed-spores-but-not-infected vs. bees with gut spores. Specific bacteria, including Gilliamella ASVs, were positively associated with infection, indicating that multiple strains of core gut microbes either facilitate or resist N. ceranae infection. Future studies on the interactions between bacterial, pathogen, and host genotypes would be illuminating.

BACKGROUND: Despite being among the most abundant biological entities on earth, bacteriophage (phage) remain an understudied component of host-associated systems. One limitation to studying host-associated phage is the lack of consensus on methods for sampling phage communities. Here, we compare paired total metagenomes and viral size fraction metagenomes (viromes) as methods for investigating the dsDNA viral communities associated with the GI tract of two bee species: the European honey bee Apis mellifera and the eastern bumble bee Bombus impatiens. RESULTS: We find that viromes successfully enriched for phage, thereby increasing phage recovery, but only in honey bees. In contrast, for bumble bees, total metagenomes recovered greater phage diversity. Across both bee species, viromes better sampled low occupancy phage, while total metagenomes were biased towards sampling temperate phage. Additionally, many of the phage captured by total metagenomes were absent altogether from viromes. Comparing between bees, we show that phage communities in commercially reared bumble bees are significantly reduced in diversity compared to honey bees, likely reflecting differences in bacterial titer and diversity. In a broader context, these results highlight the complementary nature of total metagenomes and targeted viromes, especially when applied to host-associated environments. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we suggest that studies interested in assessing total communities of host-associated phage should consider using both approaches. However, given the constraints of virome sampling, total metagenomes may serve to sample phage communities with the understanding that they will preferentially sample dominant and temperate phage. Video Abstract.

The conservation of pollinators, such as bees, is important because they provide criticalpollination services in urban, natural, and agricultural ecosystems. While pollinators and theirservices are better studied in agricultural systems, less is known about the pollinators and theirfloral visitation patterns in urban/suburban areas. This includes the knowledge of bee speciespresent on the University of California, Riverside campus, located in an urban setting. Urbanareas, including college campuses, have been known to provide floral resources to pollinatorswith the integration of urban greenspaces. In this study, we aimed to: (1) characterize pollinatorvisitation to landscaping plantings on the University of California, Riverside campus, and (2)describe their foraging behaviors. Six plots throughout the campus were selected, with mostmeasuring at least 1 ha and each at least 100 meters apart. In these plots, we observed andrecorded any pollinators visiting floral species. We used mark-recapture methods to assesswhether the bee species stayed loyal to a specific floral species or whether they visited a widevariety of plants. Overall, we detected a total of 12 pollinator species marked that had visited 36flowering plant species in our plots in the UC Riverside campus. Of these 12 pollinator species,three were recaptured, Bombus melanopygus, Melissodes spp., and Apis mellifera. Recaptureprobability varied by the plant species visited and the pollinator’s identity but was consistentacross plots. Overall, our findings suggest that floral resources provided in urban greenspaces atthe University of California, Riverside have the potential to support native pollinatorcommunities.

Understanding the relationship between physiological factors on social behavior in bees is critical to understanding their ecological dynamics. This study investigates the relationship between body mass, ovary size, Dufour’s gland size, and chill coma recovery time in female Xylocopa tabaniformis bees. Analyses reveal a significant predictive relationship between bee body mass and both ovariole length and Dufour’s gland length. Body mass does not emerge as a significant predictor of CCRT, suggesting other factors as better predictors for thermal tolerance. Conflicting conclusions arise regarding CCRT as a function of physical trauma or age, emphasizing a need for further investigation. Future research should expand the scope of species studied, and the timing of the study to include pre-reproductive female bees. The findings of this study provide insight into the physiological underpinnings of bee sociality and highlight the complexity of bee ecological dynamics.This poster was presented at the UCSB URCA colloquium in Spring 2024.

Heat waves are becoming increasingly common due to climate change, making it crucial to identify and understand the capacities for insect pollinators, such as honey bees, to avoid overheating. We examined the effects of hot, dry air temperatures on the physiological and behavioral mechanisms that honey bees use to fly when carrying nectar loads, to assess how foraging is limited by overheating or desiccation. We found that flight muscle temperatures increased linearly with load mass at air temperatures of 20 or 30 °C, but, remarkably, there was no change with increasing nectar loads at an air temperature of 40 °C. Flying, nectar-loaded bees were able to avoid overheating at 40 °C by reducing their flight metabolic rates and increasing evaporative cooling. At high body temperatures, bees apparently increase flight efficiency by lowering their wingbeat frequency and increasing stroke amplitude to compensate, reducing the need for evaporative cooling. However, even with reductions in metabolic heat production, desiccation likely limits foraging at temperatures well below bees critical thermal maxima in hot, dry conditions.

Host-microbe interactions underlie the development and fitness of many macroorganisms, including bees. Whereas many social bees benefit from vertically transmitted gut bacteria, current data suggests that solitary bees, which comprise the vast majority of species diversity within bees, lack a highly specialized gut microbiome. Here, we examine the composition and abundance of bacteria and fungi throughout the complete life cycle of the ground-nesting solitary bee Anthophora bomboides standfordiana. In contrast to expectations, immature bee stages maintain a distinct core microbiome consisting of Actinobacterial genera (Streptomyces, Nocardiodes) and the fungus Moniliella spathulata. Dormant (diapausing) larval bees hosted the most abundant and distinctive bacteria and fungi, attaining 33 and 52 times their initial copy number, respectively. We tested two adaptive hypotheses regarding microbial functions for diapausing bees. First, using isolated bacteria and fungi, we found that Streptomyces from brood cells inhibited the growth of multiple pathogenic filamentous fungi, suggesting a role in pathogen protection during overwintering, when bees face high pathogen pressure. Second, sugar alcohol composition changed in tandem with major changes in fungal abundance, suggesting links with bee cold tolerance or overwintering biology. We find that A. bomboides hosts a conserved core microbiome that may provide key fitness advantages through larval development and diapause, which raises the question of how this microbiome is maintained and faithfully transmitted between generations. Our results suggest that focus on microbiomes of mature or active insect developmental stages may overlook stage-specific symbionts and microbial fitness contributions during host dormancy.

The Varroa destructor mite is a parasitic threat to managed and feral honey bee colonies around the world. Beekeepers use miticides to eliminate Varroa in commercial hives, but these chemicals can diminish bee health and increase miticide resistance. In contrast, feral honey bees have developed multiple ways to counteract mites without chemical treatment. We compared mite levels, grooming habits, and mite-biting behavior between feral Africanized honey bees (genomically verified Apis mellifera scutellata hybrids) and managed Italian honey bees (A. mellifera ligustica). Surprisingly, there was no difference in mite infestation levels between scutellata-hybrids and managed bees over one year despite the regular use of miticides in managed colonies. We also found no differences in the social immunity responses of the two groups, as measured by their hygienic habits (through worker brood pin-kill assays), self-grooming, and mite-biting behavior. However, we provide the first report that both scutellata-hybrids and managed honey bees bite off mite chemosensory forelegs, which the mites use to locate brood cells for reproduction, to a significantly greater degree than other legs (a twofold greater reduction in foreleg length relative to the most anterior legs). Such biting may impair mite reproduction.

To what extent are weeds on arable land useful to pollinators in an arable‐dominated landscape? We sampled the weed flora in fields under conventional or organic farming in SE Sweden. More specifically, we noted the frequency of flowering among weeds that scored high on a pollinator index, henceforth ‘pollinator‐friendly weeds’. Furthermore, we sampled pollinating insects within cereal crops using transect walks and colour pan traps. As expected, weeds were ubiquitous and occurred in most sampling plots (0.25 m2). In the pan traps, more than 100 species of pollinators were caught, including 26 Syrphidae, 19 social bees, 37 solitary bees and 22 other Hymenoptera. In the transects walks, the probability of encountering bees increased with flowering of pollinator‐friendly weeds, and there was a similar but weaker pattern among hoverflies. Organically grown fields differed from conventional ones by having more pollinator‐friendly weeds, more flowering of such weeds, and more bees. There was also a tendency for hoverflies and other Hymenoptera to be more abundant in organic fields. Three conclusions emerged. First, pollinator‐friendly weeds made up one third to almost half of the weed occurrences recorded. Second, substantial numbers of pollinators searched for flowers within arable fields, and some increased with the abundance of flowering of pollinator‐friendly weeds. Third, flowering pollinator‐friendly weeds and some pollinators were more abundant in organic fields than in conventional ones. Overall, we showed that weeds on arable land are a potential and sought after resource among pollinators, and that even conventionally grown crops should be considered a potential habitat for bees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document acknowledges and thanks top reviewers for their exceptional work in Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research®. The reviewers with the highest mean review-quality scores between September 1, 2023, and August 31, 2024, are recognized for their contributions to orthopaedic research. The list includes reviewers from various locations worldwide, showcasing a diverse group of individuals dedicated to enhancing the quality of the journal. [Extracted from the article]

Urbanization in tropical landscapes is a complex phenomenon that can lead to community shifts rather than simple species extinction in response to multiple stressors in peri-urban and urban settings. We have investigated the impacts of different stressors along a tropical urban-peri-urban gradient on the bee community, the health of which is a global conservation concern. Several stressors such as increased built-up area, pesticide application and air pollution may effectively regulate bee community composition and corresponding functional diversity along urban-peri urban gradients. We investigated the changes in bee community structure in response to associated stressors in 20 locations including parks and gardens along an urban-peri-urban gradient surrounding the megacity of Kolkata. Bee community structure differed significantly between urban and peri-urban sites with urban sites showing lower value of nestedness. Network analysis also revealed that Apis florea and Lasioglosssum sp. 1 were the most important species in the urban and peri-urban areas respectively, as they had the highest values in bee-site network parameters. Functional diversity increased with urbanization and decreased with pesticide toxicity. Functional redundancy decreased with urbanization. Individual stressors impacted the bee assemblage differentially along the urbanization gradient. SO2 and pesticide toxicity negatively influenced bee abundance and diversity. Urban sites sustained more specialized species and therefore are more vulnerable to shocks while peri-urban sites had a more functionally redundant community making it comparatively more resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Botanic gardens, valued for their live plant collections, have evolved into scientific institutions with roles in conservation, education, research, and public recreation. This study repositions botanic gardens as essential urban habitats enhancing biodiversity, focusing particularly on their support for both European honeybees and Western Australian native bees. This research addresses the intersection of urbanisation and bee conservation by developing a conceptual design for a bee-friendly botanic garden in Yanchep, Western Australia. It employs semi-structured interviews and research through design (RtD) methods to collaborate with local beekeepers, landscape architects, and ecologists. A systematic design framework for a bee-friendly botanic garden in Yanchep, Western Australia was proposed, encompassing the entire design process, from scope to detailed considerations, and aiming to be applicable across other parts of Western Australia and Australia. The research highlights three key findings: the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration, the importance of defining the garden type and functions early in the design process, and the need for diverse plant selection and nesting options to support native bees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Increased cocoa cultivation (Theobroma cacao) has led to the conversion of over 6 million hectares of rainforest to cocoa farmlands in West Africa. Globally, pollinator decline has been driven by land use changes. Though land use change through cocoa expansion may affect insect pollinators and, by extension, pollination services, this has rarely been assessed. Objectives: Our study examined the relationships between the proportion of natural forest in the landscape (reduced primarily due to cocoa expansion) and flower-visiting insect abundance, and bee abundance, richness, diversity and community composition. The effect of pan trap type (aerial or ground) was also tested. Methods: Eighteen sites were selected along a gradient of an increasing proportion of natural forests in the surrounding landscape (from 9 to 100%). Ground and aerial pan traps were deployed in each site to sample flower-visiting insects. Two sampling sessions were conducted; during the rainy season in 2021 and during the dry season in 2022. Results: The abundances of Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Hemiptera increased with increasing proportion of natural forests in the landscape, while Diptera decreased. Natural forest and trap type did not significantly influence bee abundance, species richness, and Shannon diversity. However, bee community composition differed along the forest gradient, indicating that forests and cocoa farms harbour different bee communities. Ground pan traps captured more insects (61% of 19,927 flower-visiting insects) than aerial pan traps, which was driven by the Diptera as the abundances of the other orders were not significantly related to trap type. Conclusions: Preserving natural forest in cocoa-growing landscapes is important to sustain the coexistence of diverse flower-visiting insect communities owing to their differential responses to the proportions of natural forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apis florea is a wild honeybee native to Asia that is currently spreading throughout the countries of the Middle East and East Africa, including Saudi Arabia. The spread of these honeybees raises questions regarding their pathogens, pests, and the diseases they may harbor. This is the first study of the prevalence of A. florea pathogens in Saudi Arabia. Samples from three different locations were diagnosed to identify six honeybee viruses: acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV), chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV), black queen cell virus (BQCV), deformed wing virus type A (DWV-A), deformed wing virus type B (DWV-B), and sacbrood virus (SBV); two microsporidian gut parasites, Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae; one fungi, Ascosphaera apis; two bacterial pathogens, Paenibacillus larvae and Melissococcus plutonius; and the ectoparasites Euvarroa sinhai and Varroa destructor. In this study, ABPV, CBPV, BQCV, DWV-A, N. apis, N. ceranae, and M. plutonius were detected in A. florea, while DWV-B, SBV, A. apis, P. larvae, E. sinhai, and V. destructor were absent. The findings of this study represent the initial contribution to understanding the presence of pathogens in the A. florea honeybee in Saudi Arabia. However, further research is necessary to develop sustainable strategies for the beekeeping industry and awareness of pathogens that cause diseases in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, is an economically important pollinator, as well as a tractable species for studying the behavioral intricacies of eusociality. Honey bees are currently being challenged by multiple biotic and environmental stressors, many of which act concomitantly to affect colony health and productivity. For instance, developmental stress can lead workers to become precocious foragers and to leave the hive prematurely. Precocious foragers have decreased flight time and lower foraging efficiency, which can ultimately lower colony productivity and even lead to colony collapse. Materials and methods: In this study, we tested the hypothesis that stress during pupal development can cause young workers to exit the hive prematurely before they are physically able to fly. This premature exiting behavior results in death outside the hive soon thereafter. To determine how various stressors may lead bees to perform this behavior, we subjected workers during the last pupal stage to either cold stress (26 °C for 24 h), heat stress (39 °C for 24 h), or Varroa destructor mite parasitization, and compared the rate of premature hive exits between stressed bees and their respective control counterparts. Upon emergence, we individually tagged focal bees in all treatment groups and introduced them to a common observation hive. We then followed tagged bees over time and monitored their survivorship, as well as their likelihood of performing the premature hive exiting behavior. We also dissected the hypopharyngeal glands of all treatment and control bees sampled. Results: We found that significantly more bees in all three treatment groups exited the hive prematurely compared to their control counterparts. Bees in all treatment groups also had significantly smaller hypopharyngeal glands than control bees. Conclusions: Our results suggest that premature hive exiting behavior is driven by stress and is potentially a form of accelerated age polyethism that leads to premature death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that social learning in bumblebees can occur through second-order conditioning, with conspecifics functioning as first-order reinforcers. However, the behavioural mechanisms underlying bumblebees' acquisition of socially learned associations remain largely unexplored. Investigating these mechanisms requires detailed quantification and analysis of the observation process. Here we designed a new 2D paradigm suitable for simple top-down high-speed video recording and analysed bumblebees' observational learning process using a deep-learning-based pose-estimation framework. Two groups of bumblebees observed live conspecifics foraging from either blue or yellow flowers during a single foraging bout, and were subsequently tested for their socially learned colour preferences. Both groups successfully learned the colour indicated by the demonstrators and spent more time facing rewarding flowers—whether occupied by demonstrators or not—compared to non-rewarding flowers. While both groups showed a negative correlation between time spent facing non-rewarding flowers and learning outcomes, the observer bees in the blue group benefited from time spent facing occupied rewarding flowers, whereas the yellow group showed that time facing unoccupied rewarding flowers by the observer bees positively correlated with their learning outcomes. These results suggest that socially influenced colour preferences are shaped by the interplay of different types of observations rather than merely by observing a conspecific at a single colour. Together, these findings provide direct evidence of the dynamical viewing process of observer bees during social observation, opening up new opportunities for exploring the details of more complex social learning in bumblebees and other insects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to compare the bacterial load in the guts of honey bees supported and unsupplemented with probiotic supplements. To investigate the effects of a commercial bee probiotic containing different Lactobacillus species and different spice extracts on the composition of the gut microbiota of honey bees, QPCR counts of Lactobacillus spp. and Firmicutes phylum gene copies in gut mixtures from 12 different bee groups with and without probiotic supplementation were performed. There was a significant difference between the levels of Lactobacillus spp. in the guts of both groups. When Lactobacillus spp. levels in the guts of honey bees not given probiotics were compared to the Lactobacillus spp. levels in the guts of honey bees given probiotics, it was determined that there was an approximately 5.5-fold difference. However, it was observed that there was no significant difference in the Firmicutes load in the bee guts of both groups. These findings show that the applied probiotic formulation significantly affects the intestinal microbiome of healthy individuals and provides a proportional change in microbial abundance, especially in terms of Lactobacillus spp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have explored the organization of pollination networks and the factors influencing these interactions at various spatial and temporal scales. Within these networks, species vary in their significance and influence on one another (i.e. their interactive roles), and understanding which factors determine this significance enables us to better comprehend the interconnected relationships that drive the resilience and diversity of ecosystems. Nevertheless, despite the ectothermic nature of bees and the potential impact of social behaviour on bee foraging patterns on plants, the amount of theoretical and empirical information available regarding how bee thermal tolerance limits and sociality affect their interactive roles within pollination networks remains relatively scarce. In this study, we assess how sociality and physiological (thermal tolerance) traits shape the interactive role of bees within a pollination network in a coastal environment of the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico. For sociality, we classified bees as eusocial, subsocial, and solitary while for the limits of thermal tolerance, we used both warmest (i.e. critical thermal maximum, CTmax) and coldest (i.e. critical thermal minimum, CTmin) temperature. In general, we found that bees' sociality and thermal tolerance limits explain the interactive role of bees within the pollination network studied. Specifically, eusocial bees had a greater interactive role than subsocial and solitary bees. Moreover, we observed that bees with lower CTmax and higher CTmin (i.e. less heat and cold tolerant) had greater interactive role. Our findings suggest that traits inherent to the life history of bees are valuable for predicting the interactive roles of bees within pollination networks and may have implications for various ecological, functional and evolutionary processes within ecosystems, including potential impacts resulting from climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Mature inflorescences of sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) orient constantly on average to the geographical east. According to one of the explanations of this phenomenon, the eastward orientation of sunflower inflorescences increases the number of attracted insect pollinators. We tested this hypothesis in three field experiments performed in flowering sunflower plantations. In experiments 1 and 2 we measured the number of insects trapped by the vertical walls of sticky sunflower models facing north, east, south, and west. In experiment 3 we counted the pollinators' landings on real sunflower inflorescences facing naturally east or turned artificially toward north, south, and west. We found that the all‐day number of pollinators (predominantly bees) attracted to model and real sunflowers in H. annuus plantations is independent of the azimuth direction of sunflower heads, and after 10 h in the morning, the average number of pollinators counted every 20 min is practically constant in the rest of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Studies have demonstrated a morphological decomposition process in the initial stages of visual word recognition based on orthographically defined morphemes and independent of semantic and lexical information. The present study sought to investigate this phenomenon in adult Brazilian Portuguese-speaking readers. Method: Participants performed a lexical decision task preceded by primes at two Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA): 33 or 250 ms. The primes had one of the following relations with the target word: morphological (porteiro [DOORKEEPER]–PORTA [DOOR]), morpho-orthographic (cordeiro [LAMB]–CORDA [ROPE]), orthographic (abril [APRIL]–ABRIU [OPENED]), semantic (abelha [BEE]–MEL [HONEY]), or no relation (pessoa [PERSON]–DADO [DICE]). Results: Priming effects were observed for the morphological and semantic conditions at both SOAs but not for the orthographic and morpho-orthographic conditions. Conclusion: Our results suggest that semantic representations mediate morphological priming in Brazilian Portuguese since the early stages of visual word recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Aim Location Time Period Taxa Methods Results Main Conclusions The study of the theory of island biogeographic (TIB) has focused mainly on plants and vertebrates, with support for the predictions that species richness decreases with distance from the mainland and increases with island size. However, less work has been done on invertebrates. Similarly, the study of the island rule has been studied mainly in vertebrates. A group of invertebrates that can facilitate the study of TIB and the island rule are orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini), because they are easily collected and show powerful flight performances that allows them to travel long distances. We wondered if these bees would follow the predictions of island biogeography, given that their populations may not be isolated across islands. To test if there is an homogenitazion of orchid bee communities across islands, we evaluated orchid bees abundance and species composition across islands. Besides, we tested the island rule by examining body size variations in individuals collected across islands.Coiba National Park (Panama).May and June 2023.Orchid bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Euglossini).By using traps with chemical attractants, we sampled male bees from five islands and the mainland in Coiba National Park in the Pacific side of Panama. We tested the TIB by evaluating whether richness decreased with distance from the mainland or whether increased with island area. To investigate the island rule, and whether there is variation in body size across islands, we used Euglossa imperialis and Euglossa mixta as models, the two most abundant species in the study area.For the overall orchid bee community, we found that our results fit one of the predictions of IBT, increases in orchid bee abundance with island area; however, species richness did not decrease with isolation and did not increase with island area as predicted by TIB. An interesting result was that as distance from the mainland increased few species became more dominant. Regarding the island rule, we found in the two Euglossa species a marked pattern of reduction in body size as distance from the mainland increased, which seems to outweigh the effect of island size, since the largest island and one of the farthest showed some of the smallest body sizes.Whether euglossine bees travel long distances across islands in marine environments remain unclear. As distance from the mainland increases, few species become dominant, which may be caused by a decrease of resources that favours generalist species. This increase in abundance may explain the decrease in body size with isolation, as perhaps competition for resources increases. Our study provides novel insights to better appraise the dynamics of orchid bees' communities in insular habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid populations of Africanized honey bees (scutellata‐hybrids), notable for their defensive behaviour, have spread rapidly throughout South and North America since their unintentional introduction. Although their migration has slowed, the large‐scale trade and movement of honey bee queens and colonies raise concern over the accidental importation of scutellata‐hybrids to previously unoccupied areas. Therefore, developing an accurate and robust assay to detect scutellata‐hybrids is an important first step toward mitigating risk. Here, we used an extensive population genomic dataset to assess the genomic composition of Apis mellifera native populations and patterns of genetic admixture in North and South American commercial honey bees. We used this dataset to develop a SNP assay, where 80 markers, combined with machine learning classification, can accurately differentiate between scutellata‐hybrids and non‐scutellata‐hybrid commercial colonies. The assay was validated on 1263 individuals from colonies located in Canada, the United States, Australia and Brazil. Notably, we demonstrate that using a reduced SNP set of as few as 10 loci can still provide accurate results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bees and moths are globally important pollinators. Xeric barrens in the largely mesic northeastern USA support high levels of pollinator diversity, including rare bees and moths. We investigated the response of bee vs. moth communities to abiotic and vegetation drivers in barrens across the region. We sampled local environmental conditions, vegetation, bees, and moths for 2–4 years in 19 preserves. Employing random forest analysis, we tested the role of 29 abiotic and vegetation predictors of bee vs. moth abundance, species richness, Shannon‐Wiener Index, evenness, and species composition. Variables related to climate, canopy cover, and soils were the most important predictors of abundance, diversity, and species composition for both bees and moths. Vegetation variables, such as species richness of shrubs and hostplants, were also important for bees. The direction of these relationships contrasted sharply between bees and moths: bees were more abundant and species rich in more open, sandy sites and moths the opposite. Habitat preferences for a subset of moth xeric specialists were much more similar to bees than to other moths, with a preference for open, sandy conditions. Contrasts between bees and moths in habitat preferences likely stemmed from differences in their life histories: bees rely on flowers for feeding and porous substrates for nesting, whereas most moth adults feed on flowers, but many moth caterpillars use woody plants as hosts. In sharp contrast to the results for abundance and richness, bees and moths responded similarly for the Shannon‐Wiener Index, which raises important general questions about the conservation value of these two metrics. Our results suggest that, because of differences in habitat preferences among pollinators, barrens management for both open and more closed habitats is likely to promote the highest abundance and diversity of local bee and moth pollinator communities jointly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is rapidly warming thermal environments, an important abiotic stimulus governing interactions between microbial symbionts and their hosts. Increasing evidence suggests that solitary bees rely on pollen provision microbes for successful development. However, the effects of heat stress on provision microbiota and the resulting consequences for larval health and development remain to be examined. We performed an in vitro study to investigate the effects of the thermal environment on provision microbiome composition and measured fitness outcomes for Osmia lignaria larvae. While pollen sterilisation removed bacteria from microbe‐rich provisions, larval survivorship did not significantly differ between bees reared on microbe‐rich (unmanipulated) diets and provisions treated with ethylene oxide (EO) gas. In contrast to previous research in solitary bees, larvae reared on EO‐treated provisions weighed more and had higher total fat content, with temperature moderating the degree of difference. As anticipated, we observed a negative relationship between the duration of larval development and temperature. Our results indicated that an intact provision microbiota may not always improve bee fitness and that bee‐microbe interactions during larval development may contribute to the size‐shrinking effect observed for cavity‐nesting bees under warming conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation and conflict are common in plant–pollinator interactions. Flowering plants often entice pollinators to visit by offering floral food rewards, thereby facilitating pollination. However, pollinators such as bees can learn to improve their collection of floral rewards (such as pollen), changing how they interact with the flower's reproductive organs, which together could reduce pollination success. Consequently, complex flowers that slow pollinator learning might benefit the plant. Yet how pollinator learning and flower complexity interact to affect pollination success is unknown. We therefore asked how differences in complexity of 4 flower types (Phacelia campanularia, Exacum affine , Solanum elaeagnifolium , and Erythranthe guttata) affected learning by pollen-foraging generalist bumble bees (Bombus impatiens) and how learning affected pollen collection and pollen deposition on these flowers. We found that bees generally learned how to efficiently handle more complex flower types more slowly. Bees that required more visits to become efficient foragers collected less pollen, with no effect on pollen deposition. Except for the simplest flower type, learning also involved development of motor routines unique to each flower type. Experienced bees overall collected more pollen, but individual differences in motor routines did not affect pollen collection. Conversely, individual differences in motor routines affected pollen deposition, but there was no overall effect of experience. Thus, even though learning overall benefits the bee, it does not alter female (and potentially male) fitness benefits for the plant. We discuss potential reasons for these patterns and consequences for bee behavior and flower evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in bee diversity, largely driven by habitat loss, climate change and invasive species, is well‐documented. Within this context, the genus Megachile Latreille, 1802 (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae), a diverse group of solitary leafcutter bees, lacks comprehensive species‐level conservation and taxonomic assessments, potentially concealing population declines and extinctions.Megachile pruina is one of Bermuda's three bee species and possibly the last native bee on the island. Formerly distributed widely across the island, it is now restricted to a small 11.5 ha area within the Castle Harbour Islands Nature Reserve.Classified as 'Vulnerable' under the Bermuda Protected Species Act, its taxonomic and conservation status remains uncertain, particularly its evolutionary relationships with populations in the United States.Here, we analyse nuclear genomes and mitochondrial genomes to reveal that Bermuda's M. pruina population is genetically distinct from mainland US populations and show no close association with any sampled US population, suggesting that Bermuda's represent a unique evolutionary lineage.Our genetic diversity assessment shows lower genetic diversity in Bermuda's population compared with the United States, highlighting a higher level of vulnerability than originally thought.We recommend maintaining its current protection status and advocate for the pressing need of expanding ecological and biological studies to facilitate appropriate conservation and monitoring measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As pollinators, bees are key to maintaining the biodiversity of angiosperm plants, and for agriculture they provide a billion-dollar ecosystem service. But they also compete for resources (primarily nectar and pollen), especially the highly social bees that live in perennial colonies. So, how do they organize their daily temporal activities? Here, we present a versatile, low-cost device for the continuous, automatic recording and data analysis of the locomotor activity in the colony-entrance tube of highly eusocial bees. Consisting of an in-house built block containing an infrared detector, the passage of bees in the colony entrance tunnel is registered and automatically recorded in an Arduino environment, together with concomitant recordings of temperature and relative humidity. With a focus on the highly diverse Neotropical stingless bees (Meliponini), we obtained 10-day consecutive recordings for two colonies each of the species Melipona quadrifasciata and Frieseomelitta varia, and also for the honey bee. The Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis identified a predominant circadian rhythmicity for all three species, but also indications of ultradian rhythms. For M. quadrifasciata, which is comparable in size to the honey bee, we found evidence for a possibly anticipatory activity already before sunrise. As all three species also presented activity at night in the colony entrance tube, this also raises questions about sleep organization in social insects. The cost and versatility of the device and the open-source options for data analysis make this an attractive system for conducting studies on circadian rhythms in social bees under natural conditions, complementing studies on flower visits by these important pollinators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climatic factors are known to shape the expression of social behaviours. Likewise, variation in social behaviour can dictate climate responses. Understanding interactions between climate and sociality is crucial for forecasting vulnerability and resilience to climate change across animal taxa.These interactions are particularly relevant for taxa like bees that exhibit a broad diversity of social states. An emerging body of literature aims to quantify bee responses to environmental change with respect to variation in key functional traits, including sociality. Additionally, decades of research on environmental drivers of social evolution may prove fruitful for predicting shifts in the costs and benefits of social strategies under climate change.In this review, we explore these findings to ask two interconnected questions: (a) how does sociality mediate vulnerability to climate change, and (b) how might climate change impact social organisation in bees? We highlight traits that intersect with bee sociality that may confer resilience to climate change (e.g. extended activity periods, diet breadth, behavioural thermoregulation) and we generate predictions about the impacts of climate change on the expression and distribution of social phenotypes in bees.The social evolutionary consequences of climate change will be complex and heterogeneous, depending on such factors as local climate and plasticity of social traits. Many contexts will see an increase in the frequency of eusocial nesting as warming temperatures accelerate development and expand the temporal window for rearing a worker brood. More broadly, climate‐mediated shifts in the abiotic and biotic selective environments will alter the costs and benefits of social living in different contexts, with cascading impacts at the population, community and ecosystem levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a century of research on pollinator cognition has shown that pollinators such as bees perceive and learn a multitude of floral stimuli and are capable of sophisticated decision-making using a variety of cognitive abilities. Research on pollinator cognition usually focuses on a single reward aspect in isolation, which does not reflect the complexity of reward types, chemistries, and attributes many pollinators encounter while foraging. Reward complexity can impact pollinators' perception, learning, and decision-making in interesting and sometimes unexpected ways. A cognitive perspective can shed new insight into the functions of floral reward complexity and bridge the fields of animal behavior and plant ecology. The cognitive ecology of pollination is most often studied using simple rewards, yet flowers often contain multiple types of chemically complex rewards, each varying along multiple dimensions of quality. In this review we highlight ways in which reward complexity can impact pollinator cognition, demonstrating the need to consider ecologically realistic rewards to fully understand plant–pollinator interactions. We show that pollinators' reward preferences can be modulated by reward chemistry and the collection of multiple reward types. We also discuss how reward complexity can mediate pollinator learning through a variety of mechanisms, both with and without reward preference being altered. Finally, we show how an understanding of decision-making strategies is necessary to predict how pollinators' evaluation of reward options depends on the other options available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have found that biotic information can play an important role in shaping the distribution of species even at large scales. However, results from species distribution models are not always consistent among studies and the underlying factors that influence the importance of biotic information to distribution models, are unclear. We studied wild bees and plants, and cleptoparasite bees and their hosts in the Netherlands to evaluate how the inclusion of their biotic interactions affects the performance of species distribution models. We assessed model performance through spatial block cross‐validation and by comparing models with interactions to models where the interacting species was randomized. Finally, we evaluated how, 1) spatial resolution, 2) taxonomic rank (genus or species), 3) degree of specialization, 4) distribution of the biotic factor, 5) bee body size and 6) type of biotic interaction, affect the importance of biotic interactions in shaping the distribution of wild bee species using generalized linear models (GLMs). We found that the models of wild bees improved when the biotic factor was included. The model performance improved the most for parasitic bees. Spatial resolution, taxonomic rank, distribution range of the biotic factor and degree of specialization of the modelled species all influenced the importance of the biotic interaction to the models. We encourage researchers to include biotic interactions in species distribution models, especially for specialized species and when the biotic factor has a limited distribution range. However, before adding the biotic factor we suggest considering different spatial resolutions and taxonomic ranks of the biotic factor. We recommend using single species or genus data as a biotic factor in the models of specialist species and for the generalist species, we recommend using an approximate measure of interactions, such as flower richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caffeic acid is a common phenolic acid found in coffee and numerous fruits and vegetables. Known for its antioxidant properties, it is widely used as a dietary supplement as part of a polyphenol mixture or as an extract in the form of a capsule or powder. It is also available in liquid form as a homeopathic supplement. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) is an active component of propolis produced by honey bees. Propolis extract is used as a supplement and is available in various forms. The present paper is a comprehensive review of the biomedical literature, showing that caffeic acid effects are hormetic and occur in numerous biological models and cell types for a broad range of endpoints including many aging-related processes. Hormesis is a biphasic dose/concentration response displaying a low concentration/dose stimulation and a high concentration/dose inhibition. Complex alternative search strategies for caffeic acid were used since publications rarely used the terms hormesis or hormetic. Evaluation of the data provides the first assessment of caffeic acid-induced hormetic concentration/dose responses and their quantitative features. Their mechanistic foundations, extrapolative strengths/limitations, and their biomedical, clinical, and public health implications are discussed. Suggestions for future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Margaret Cavendish's seventeenth-century poem, "The Head of Man Compared to a Hive of Bees," calls attention to the position of honeybees as floating signifiers in literature. In her short poem, she creates simile after simile, comparing bees to physiological, political, social, and literary concerns. Bees appear to be mere similes, divorced from their "real," natural state, but Cavendish's poem in fact reveals the fraught nature of bee similes. The lived reality of honeybees is a secondary concern to poets, Cavendish's poem implies, for bees are more important as recognizable and polysemous symbols than as creatures with their own experiences and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative genomic studies of social insects suggest that changes in gene regulation are associated with evolutionary transitions in social behavior, but the activity of predicted regulatory regions has not been tested empirically. We used self-transcribing active regulatory region sequencing, a high-throughput enhancer discovery tool, to identify and measure the activity of enhancers in the socially variable sweat bee, Lasioglossum albipes. We identified over 36,000 enhancers in the L. albipes genome from 3 social and 3 solitary populations. Many enhancers were identified in only a subset of L. albipes populations, revealing rapid divergence in regulatory regions within this species. Population-specific enhancers were often proximal to the same genes across populations, suggesting compensatory gains and losses of regulatory regions may preserve gene activity. We also identified 1,182 enhancers with significant differences in activity between social and solitary populations, some of which are conserved regulatory regions across species of bees. These results indicate that social trait variation in L. albipes is associated with the fine-tuning of ancient enhancers as well as lineage-specific regulatory changes. Combining enhancer activity with population genetic data revealed variants associated with differences in enhancer activity and identified a subset of differential enhancers with signatures of selection associated with social behavior. Together, these results provide the first empirical map of enhancers in a socially flexible bee and highlight links between cis -regulatory variation and the evolution of social behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The yellow‐legged hornet (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) is a predatory species native to South‐East Asia. The hornet is invasive in Europe, spreading to several countries and becoming a pest for Apis mellifera due to its behaviour of preying in front of apiaries. The aim of this study was (i) to investigate the presence of honey bee pathogens within the developmental stages of V. velutina after neutralizing a nest in Bologna province (Emilia‐Romagna, Italy) and (ii) to analyze the mitochondrial DNA to determine if the population derived from the population initially introduced in Europe. RESULTS: The results indicated that deformed wing virus (82.76%) and Nosema ceranae (67.28%) were the most prevalent pathogens. Deformed wing virus, N. ceranae and sacbrood virus were found in all investigated stages, while chronic bee paralysis virus and Kashmir bee virus were exclusively found in foraging adults. All detected viruses were found to be replicative, highlighting active infection in the hosts. The mtDNA analysis demonstrated that the origin derived from the invasive population arrived in France. CONCLUSION: This study underscores the importance of further research to understand the effect of interspecific transmission, especially concerning the potential role of these pathogens as a biocontrol for the invasive V. velutina nigrithorax. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial modelling approaches to aid land‐use decisions which benefit both wildlife and humans are often limited to the comparison of pre‐determined landscape scenarios, which may not reflect the true optimum landscape for any end‐user. Furthermore, the needs of wildlife are often under‐represented when considered alongside human financial interests in these approaches.We develop a method of addressing these gaps using a case‐study of wild bees in the UK, an important group whose declines may adversely affect both human economies and surrounding ecosystems. By combining the genetic algorithm NSGA‐II with a process‐based pollinator model which simulates bee foraging and population dynamics, Poll4pop, we 'evolve' a typical UK agricultural landscape to identify optimum land cover configurations for three different guilds of wild bee. These configurations are compared to those resulting from optimisations for farm income alone, as well as optimisations that seek a compromise between bee populations and farm income objectives.We find that the land cover proportions in landscapes optimised for each bee guild reflect their nesting habitat preferences rather than foraging preferences, highlighting a limiting resource within the study landscape. The spatially explicit nature of these optimised landscapes illustrates how improvement for a given target species may be limited by differences between their movement range and the scale of the units being improved. Land cover composition and configuration differ significantly in landscapes optimised for farm income and bee population growth simultaneously and illustrate how human agents are required to compromise much more when the multifaceted nature of biodiversity is recognised and represented by multiple objectives within an optimisation framework. Our methods provide a way to quantify the extent to which real‐life landscapes promote or compromise objectives for different landscape end‐users.Our investigation suggests that optimisation set‐up (decision‐unit scales, traditional choice of a single biodiversity metric) can bias outcomes towards human‐centric solutions. It also demonstrates the importance of representing the individual requirements of different actors with different landscape‐level needs when using genetic algorithms to support biodiversity‐inclusive decision‐making in multi‐functional landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is severely impacted by the parasitic Tropilaelaps mercedesae mite, which has the capacity to outcompete Varroa destructor mites (the current leading cause of colony losses) and more rapidly overwhelm colonies. While T. mercedesae is native to Asia, it has recently expanded its geographic range and has the potential to devastate beekeeping worldwide if introduced to new regions. Our research exploited the dependence of T. mercedesae on developing honey bees (brood) by combining a cultural technique (brood break) with U.S. registered chemical products (oxalic acid or formic acid) to manage T. mercedesae infestation. To evaluate this approach, we compared four treatment groups: (1) Brood Break; (2) Brood Break + Formic Acid (FormicPro®); (3) Brood Break + Oxalic Acid dribble (Api-Bioxal®); and (4) untreated Control. We found that the mite infestation rate of worker brood in Control colonies rose from 0.4 to 15.25% over 60 days, whereas all other treatment groups had infestation rates under 0.11% on Day 60. Mite fall assessments showed similar results, whereby Control colonies had 15.48 mites fall per 24 h on day 60 compared to less than 0.2 mites for any other treatment group. Evaluation of colony strength revealed that Brood Break + Formic Acid colonies had slightly reduced adult honey bee populations. No treatment eliminated all mites, so additional measures may be needed to eradicate T. mercedesae if detected in countries that do not currently have T. mercedesae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study on the pollination of Ophrys fuciflora (Orchidaceae), which is not a native orchid of Japan, was carried out in a botanical garden in Japan, where the flowers attracted the solitary bee, Eucera nipponensis. Six male bees were observed visiting the flowers over a period of 8 h. The pollinia of O. fuciflora became attached to these bees and four were successfully transferred to the stigmas of nearby flowers. The present study verifies that a species of Ophrys can attract pollinators in Japan, which is at least 8,700 km far from their natural habitat. Thus, it is likely that species of Ophrys could potentially extend their distribution by forming new alliances with other species of bees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion-like states in animals are commonly assessed using judgment bias tests that measure judgements of ambiguous cues. Some studies have used these tests to argue for emotion-like states in insects. However, most of these results could have other explanations, including changes in motivation and attention. To control for these explanations, we developed a novel judgment bias test, requiring bumblebees to make an active choice indicating their interpretation of ambiguous stimuli. Bumblebees were trained to associate high or low rewards, in two different reward chambers, with distinct colours. We subsequently presented bees with ambiguous colours between the two learnt colours. In response, physically stressed bees were less likely than control bees to enter the reward chamber associated with high reward. Signal detection and drift diffusion models showed that stressed bees were more likely to choose low reward locations in response to ambiguous cues. The signal detection model further showed that the behaviour of stressed bees was explained by a reduction in the estimated probability of high rewards. We thus provide strong evidence for judgement biases in bees and suggest that their stress-induced behaviour is explained by reduced expectation of higher rewards, as expected for a pessimistic judgement bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Artificial bee colony (ABC) is a popular intelligent algorithm that is widely applied to many optimization problems. However, it is challenging for ABC to solve many‐objective optimization problems (MaOPs). To tackle this issue, this article proposes a many‐objective ABC based on multi‐population (called MMaOABC) for MaOPs. In MMaOABC, the population is divided into multiple sub‐populations, and each sub‐population optimizes one objective. Three search strategies are constructed based on multiple sub‐populations to improve convergence and diversity. In the employed bee stage, some excellent solutions in multiple sub‐populations are used to guide the convergence. In the onlooker bee stage, new selection probabilities based on diversity metrics are designed to enhance the diversity. Dimensional learning is introduced in the scout bee stage to avoid falling into local minimum. In addition, environmental selection and external archives are utilized for communications among sub‐populations. To validate the performance of MMaOABC, two benchmark sets (DTLZ and MaF) with 3, 5, 8, and 15 objectives are tested. Computational results show that MMaOABC is competitive when compared with seven other many‐objective evolutionary algorithms (MaOEAs). Finally, MMaOABC is applied to many‐objective cascade reservoir scheduling. Simulation results show that MMaOABC still obtains promising performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two species of Austronomia Michener, 1965 (Hymenoptera: Halictidae, Nomiinae), namely A. goniognatha (Cockerell, 1919) and A. takauensis (Friese, 1910), are reported from India for the first time. Eleven Nomiinae bee species, Austronomia capitata (Smith, 1875), Austronomia himalayana (Nurse, 1902), Austronomia notiomorpha (Hirashima 1978), Austronomia pseudoscutellata Pauly, 2009, Hoplonomia incerta (Gribodo, 1894), Lipotriches ceratina (Smith, 1857), Lipotriches phenacura (Cockerell, 1911), Macronomia antennata (Smith, 1875), Nomia crassipes (Fabricius, 1798), Pachynomia nathani Pauly, 2009, Steganomus fulvipennis Cameron, 1898 are added to the West Bengal bee fauna. A checklist of Nomiinae bees comprising 30 species from West Bengal along with floral association is documented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the dynamics of various particles within the plasma sheath, focusing on the influence of secondary emissions from charged dust particles. The research concentrates on backscattered electron emission (BEE), inelastic reflection emission (IRE) and true-secondary electron emission (TEE) as key contributors to the behaviour of dust particles within the plasma sheath. Employing the semi-empirical model of Furman and Pivi (F-P model), the study defines the total emission of secondary electrons (EES), comprising these three types. The analysis aims to enhance our understanding of the complex interplay between secondary emission phenomena and the dynamics of charged particles within the plasma sheath, contributing valuable insights to the field. Furthermore, a comparative study has been conducted between the results obtained from the emission of secondary electrons according to the Sternglass theory and the emission of secondary electrons obtained using the F-P model. It is observed that the secondary electron emission (SEE) from the dust, based on the F-P model, demonstrates more pronounced effects on the sheath characteristics, particularly when considering lower values of the superextensive electron parameter ' $q$ '. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flower colour polymorphisms are uncommon but widespread among angiosperms and can be maintained by a variety of balancing selection mechanisms. Anemone palmata is mostly yellow‐flowered, but white‐flowered plants coexist in some populations.We analysed the distribution of colour morphs of A. palmata across its range. We also characterised their colours and compared their vegetative and sexual reproductive traits, pollinator attention and fitness.The range of A. palmata is limited to the Western Mediterranean, while white‐flowered plants are restricted to Portugal and SW Spain, where they occur at low proportions. Yellow flowers have a characteristic UV pattern, with a UV‐absorbing centre and UV‐reflecting periphery, which is absent in the white morph. Colour features of both morphs were highly delineated, making it easy for pollinators to distinguish them. Both morphs were protogynous, with the same duration of sexual stages, and the main floral traits related to pollinator attraction, apart from flower colour, were similar. Hymenoptera and Diptera were the main pollinators, showing preference for the yellow morph, clear partitioning of pollinator groups between the two colour morphs and a marked constancy to flower colour during foraging. Both morphs combined clonal propagation with sexual reproduction, but sexual reproductive potential was lower in white‐flowered plants. Finally, female fitness was higher in the yellow morph.Pollinator partitioning and colour constancy could maintain this polymorphism, despite the lower visitation rate and fitness of white‐flowered plants, which could facilitate their clonal propagation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flower colour is an important mediator of plant–pollinator interactions. While the reflectance of light from the flower surface and background are governed by physical properties, the perceptual interpretation of such information is generated by complex multilayered visual processing. Should quantitative modelling of flower signals strive for repeatable consistency enabled by parameter simplification, or should modelling reflect the dynamic way in which bees are known to process signals? We discuss why colour is an interpretation of spectral information by the brain of an animal. Different species, or individuals within a species, may respond differently to colour signals depending on sensory apparatus and/or individual experience. Humans and bees have different spectral ranges, but colour theory is strongly rooted in human colour perception and many principles of colour vision appear to be common. We discuss bee colour perception based on physiological, neuroanatomical and behavioural evidence to provide a pathway for modelling flower colours. We examine whether flower petals and floral guides as viewed against spectrally different backgrounds should be considered as a simple colour contrast problem or require a more dynamic consideration of how bees make perceptual decisions. We discuss that plants such as deceptive orchids may present signals to exploit bee perception, whilst many plants do provide honest signalling where perceived saturation indicates the probability of collecting nutritional rewards towards the centre of a flower that then facilitates effective pollination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common practice for local stingless beekeepers in Southern Mexico to keep their colonies, comprising two or more species, in a single place, which is referred to as a meliponary. Little is known, however, about whether such a setup promotes competition for local resources among them. This is particularly relevant when several dozens of hives are reared in one meliponary. In this study we examined the plant species visited by two culturally and economically important stingless bee species commonly kept together, Scaptotrigona mexicana and Tetragonisca angustula, to know the magnitude of the competition between them. Honey samples from managed colonies located in three meliponaries were collected over 2018. Using standard melissopalynological techniques we analyzed them and identified the plant species the colonies collected food from. Overall, 84 pollen types were identified: 34 at the species level, 32 at the genus level and 18 at the family level. Samples of both bee species had high indexes of plant diversity; Compositae, Leguminosae and Euphorbiaceae were the most visited plant families. Niche overlap analysis revealed that, at certain times throughout the year, as much as 21% of plant species were shared between both bee species. The results of this study show low competition between S. mexicana and T. angustula. With these results we provide Mexican stingless beekeepers with valuable information that supports the continuation of ancient bee management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The taxonomy of the Egyptian species of digger wasps of the genus Pseudoscolia Radoszkowski, 1876 (Crabronidae: Philanthinae) was reviewed. Six species were recorded: Pseudoscolia dewitzi (Kohl, 1889), P. efflatouni (Mochi, 1939), P. pharaonum (Kohl, 1898), P. sinaitica (Mochi, 1939), P. soikae (Mochi, 1939), and P. spinulicollis (Mochi, 1939). Pseudoscolia berlandi (de Beaumont, 1949) was treated as a doubtful record in the present study until otherwise confirmed. The hitherto unknown male of P. efflatouni was described and illustrated. The male P. spinulicollis was also recorded for the second time after being first described by Pulawski (1964). A key to the Egyptian species was provided. Illustrations to all important characters of species under study were also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional traits offer an informative framework for understanding ecosystem functioning and responses to global change. Trait data are abundant in the literature, yet many communities of practice lack data standards for trait measurement and data sharing, hindering data reuse that could reveal large‐scale patterns in functional and evolutionary ecology. Here, we present a roadmap toward community data standards for trait‐based research on bees, including a protocol for effective trait data sharing. We also review the state of bee functional trait research, highlighting common measurement approaches and knowledge gaps. These studies were overwhelmingly situated in agroecosystems and focused predominantly on morphological and behavioral traits, while phenological and physiological traits were infrequently measured. Studies investigating climate change effects were also uncommon. Along with our review, we present an aggregated morphological trait dataset compiled from our focal studies, representing more than 1600 bee species globally and serving as a template for standardized bee trait data presentation. We highlight obstacles to harmonizing this trait data, especially ambiguity in trait classes, methodology, and sampling metadata. Our framework for trait data sharing leverages common data standards to resolve these ambiguities and ensure interoperability between datasets, promoting accessibility and usability of trait data to advance bee ecological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on bee foraging behaviour, the Bees Algorithm (BA) is an optimisation metaheuristic algorithm which has found many applications in both the continuous and combinatorial domains. The original version of the Bees Algorithm has six user-selected parameters: the number of scout bees, the number of high-performing bees, the number of top-performing or "elite" bees, the number of forager bees following the elite bees, the number of forager bees recruited by the other high-performing bees, and the neighbourhood size. These parameters must be chosen with due care, as their values can impact the algorithm's performance, particularly when the problem is complex. However, determining the optimum values for those parameters can be time-consuming for users who are not familiar with the algorithm. This paper presents BA1, a Bees Algorithm with just one parameter. BA1 eliminates the need to specify the numbers of high-performing and elite bees and other associated parameters. Instead, it uses incremental k-means clustering to divide the scout bees into groups. By reducing the required number of parameters, BA1 simplifies the tuning process and increases efficiency. BA1 has been evaluated on 23 benchmark functions in the continuous domain, followed by 12 problems from the TSPLIB in the combinatorial domain. The results show good performance against popular nature-inspired optimisation algorithms on the problems tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]