Heritable allometric variation in bumble bees: opportunities for colony‐level selection of foraging ability

Abstract

Different characters of an organism may be correlated if genes control the allometric relationship between them. If genetic variation exists for such genes then the allometric relation itself is potentially subject to change by selection. In social insects allometric relations represent colony‐level characters. If colonies differ in these relations and this variation leads to differential productivity among colonies, then selection on allometric relations can operate at the level of the colony. We assessed the extent of heritable, between‐colony variation for the allometric coefficients relating proboscis ( = glossa) length to wing length for two bumble bee species (Bombus huntii and B. occidentalis). We found that in both species colonies did not differ significantly in slope (b) but did differ significantly in intercept (a) of the regression of glossa length on wing length. Within‐colony variation of the intercept was estimated by randomly constituting groups of five workers from each colony and calculating the regression for each group. The intraclass correlation was then calculated from the between‐ and within‐colony mean squares. We found significant intraclass correlations in both species, giving heritabilities of 0.5 ± 0.3 in B. hunti and 0.7 ± 0.3 in B. occidentalis. If this allometric relation affects colony foraging success and foraging environments vary geographically, then the intercept should exhibit corresponding geographic variation. We tested this prediction by comparing intercepts calculated using wild‐caught B. vagans workers from Alberta, Ontario and Maine. We found that the intercepts did differ significantly between sites, with the bees from Alberta having a significantly smaller intercept than the bees from eastern North America. Our results illustrate the opportunity for selection on an allometric relation that directly affects the foraging success of individual bumble bee colonies. Copyright © 1995, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved