|Appears in Collections:||Biological and Environmental Sciences Journal Articles|
|Peer Review Status:||Refereed|
|Title:||Evidence for hilltopping in bumblebees?|
Sangster, Elizabeth L
Young, Jill C
|Citation:||Goulson D, Sangster EL & Young JC (2011) Evidence for hilltopping in bumblebees?, Ecological Entomology, 36 (5), pp. 560-563.|
|Abstract:||1. Male bumblebees are known to exhibit a range of mate-location behaviours, including perching on prominent objects and darting at passing queens, patrolling of scent-marked flight routes, and waiting outside nest entrances for virgin queens to emerge. Here we provide evidence for a fourth strategy, known as hilltopping. This behaviour is widely known from a range of invertebrates, but has not previously been described in bumblebees. 2. We studied the distribution of bumblebees along transects ascending four hills in Scotland and demonstrate that, relative to workers, males of four bumblebee species or species groups (Bombus lapidarius, B. monticola, B. pascuorum, and B. lucorum/magnus/cryptarum/terrestris) tend to congregate at or near the tops of hills. This is, to our knowledge, the first evidence for hilltopping in bumblebees and the first record of any putative mate-locating behaviour for male B. pascuorum, a very common species in Europe. 3. We note that, in common with most previous studies of mate-locating behaviour in bumblebees, attraction of virgin queens and mating were not observed.|
|Rights:||The publisher does not allow this work to be made publicly available in this Repository. Please use the Request a Copy feature at the foot of the Repository record to request a copy directly from the author. You can only request a copy if you wish to use this work for your own research or private study.|
|Affiliation:||Biological and Environmental Sciences|
University of Stirling
University of Stirling
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