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Outdoor spatial mosquito repellents, such as mosquito coils or heating devices, release pyrethroid insecticides into the air to provide protection from mosquitoes within a defined area. This broadcast discharge of pyrethroids into the environment raises concern about the effect on non-target organisms. A previous study found that prallethrin discharged from a heating device did not affect honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) [Hymenoptera: Apidae] foraging or recruitment. In this second study, there was no significant difference in foraging frequency (our primary outcome), waggle dance propensity, or persistency in honey bees collecting sucrose solution between those exposed to metofluthrin from a different heating device and bees exposed to a non-metofluthrin control. One measure, waggle dance frequency, was higher in the metofluthrin treatment than the control but this outcome was likely a spurious result due to the small sample size. The small particle size of the emissions, averaging 4.43 µm, from the heated spatial repellent products, which remain airborne with little settling, may play an important role in the lack of effect found on honey bee foraging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because nontarget, beneficials, like insect pollinators, may be exposed unintentionally to insecticides, it is important to evaluate the impact of chemical controls on the behaviors performed by insect pollinators in field trials. Here we examine the impact of a portable mosquito repeller, which emits prallethrin, a pyrethroid insecticide, on honey bee foraging and recruitment using a blinded, randomized, paired, parallel group trial. We found no significant effect of the volatilized insecticide on foraging frequency (our primary outcome), waggle dance propensity, waggle dance frequency, and feeder persistency (our secondary outcomes), even though an additional deposition study confirmed that the treatment device was performing appropriately. These results may be useful to consumers that are interested in repelling mosquitos, but also concerned about potential consequences to beneficial insects, such as honey bees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honey bees (Linnaeus, Hymenoptera: Apidae) are widely used as commercial pollinators and commonly forage in agricultural and urban landscapes containing neonicotinoid-treated plants. Previous research has demonstrated that honey bees display adverse behavioral and cognitive effects after treatment with sublethal doses of neonicotinoids. In laboratory studies, honey bees simultaneously increase their proportional intake of neonicotinoid-treated solutions and decrease their total solution consumption to some concentrations of certain neonicotinoids. These findings suggest that neonicotinoids might elicit a suboptimal response in honey bees, in which they forage preferentially on foods containing pesticides, effectively increasing their exposure, while also decreasing their total food intake; however, behavioral responses in semifield and field conditions are less understood. Here we conducted a feeder experiment with freely flying bees to determine the effects of a sublethal, field-realistic concentration of imidacloprid (IMD) on the foraging and recruitment behaviors of honey bees visiting either a control feeder containing a sucrose solution or a treatment feeder containing the same sucrose solution with IMD. We report that IMD-treated honey bees foraged less frequently (–28%) and persistently (–66%) than control foragers. Recruitment behaviors (dance frequency and dance propensity) also decreased with IMD, but nonsignificantly. Our results suggest that neonicotinoids inhibit honey bee foraging, which could potentially decrease food intake and adversely affect colony health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic yield loss and reduction in grain quality from brown stink bug, Euschistus servus (Say), feeding injury in early and late stages of maize, Zea mays (Poales: Poaceae, Linnaeus), development was assessed in Virginia and North Carolina in 2018 and 2019. Varying levels of stink bug infestations were introduced to seedling maize (V2—early stage), and a range of late-stages of maize, including 1) the last stage of vegetative development (V12/V14), 2) prior to tasseling, 3) at tasseling (VT), and 4) across all tested late growth stages. Euschistus servus infestation levels included 33, 67, and 100% of maize seedlings, and 25, 50, 100, and 200% of plants during later stages. Infestations were maintained on seedling maize for 7 d, and 8 or 16 d in reproductive stages. Infestation level in seedling maize had an impact on grain yield. Infestation level and growth stage both had an impact on grain yield in reproductive maize. The percentage of discolored kernels was also affected by infestation level, but not growth stage. Regression analysis between grain yield and infestation level indicated that the average economic injury level is 7% in seedling maize (7 bugs/100 plants) and 12% (12 bugs/100 plants) from the last vegetative stages (V12/V14) through pollination (VT). The economic injury level in the late vegetative stages is only applicable when infestations are present for an extended period of time (16 d), emphasizing the need for continued scouting of maize throughout the season to make informed management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hygienic behavior in honey bees is a heritable trait of individual workers that confers colony-level resistance against various brood diseases. Hygienic workers detect and remove dead or diseased brood from sealed cells. However, this behavior is quite rare, with only c.10% of unselected colonies showing high levels of hygiene. Beekeepers can potentially increase this by screening colonies for hygiene and breeding from the best. However, the level of hygiene expressed by a colony is variable, which poses a challenge to colony selection. In this study, wesystematically varied two factors thought to be of importance in infuencing hygiene levels, "nectar" availability, by feeding or not feeding sucrose syrup, and brood amount, by adding or removing brood, to determine what effect they had on hygienic behavior. Wetested 19 colonies repeatedly over a 4-mo period using the freeze-killed brood assay, a standard technique to quantify hygienic behavior. Two days after freeze-killed brood treatment, our colonies showed a wide range of brood removal levels, with colony means ranging from 31.7 ± 22.5 to 93 ± 6.9 (mean% ± SD). Neither the food nor the brood manipulation had an effect on hygiene levels. Colony size and time of year were also nonsigniÞcant. The only signiÞcant effect was a three-way interaction between syrup availability, amount of brood, and time of the year, resulting in reduced hygienic behavior early in the season (spring), in colonies with added brood that were not fed sucrose syrup. Overall, these results suggest that hygienic behavior is not greatly affected by environmental conditions typical of a real-life beekeeping, and that screening of colonies can be done anytime without special regard to nectar conditions or brood levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral syndromes or animal personalities may emerge due to covariation with different life-history strategies individual animals pursue, like risk-associated feeding rates translating in different growth trajectories. However, less clear is how this might affect individuals in cooperatively breeding species, where subordinates assist dominants in raising offspring, and growth has profound life-history and social consequences. Here, we examined the effects of behavioral type on growth rates and feeding in the cooperatively breeding cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher, comparing growth rates of individuals settled inside a group (dominant or subordinate) or unsettled fish (aggregation) of different behavioral types (bold-shy continuum) under a feeding regime where food could not be monopolized. Controlling for other factors, we found no effect of the behavioral type on the growth rates of dominants and subordinates in either sex. In contrast, bold female aggregation fish were significantly growing faster in length compared with shy female aggregation fish, whereas no such effect was detected in male aggregation fish. These growth rate differences were largely matched by differences in feeding rates, but locomotion appeared more important in determining growth than feeding rate. Our results show that differences in social status may need to be taken into account when testing for correlations between behavioral type and growth in vertebrates, and cautions that growth adjustments may get obscured due to correlated changes in other costly behaviors, like locomotion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Co-operative breeding in vertebrates may emerge due to subordinates delaying dispersal when free breeding habitat is not available (‘habitat saturation’ hypothesis, HS). However, delayed dispersal might also be due to younger individuals postponing dispersal to when they are more competitively able or have more to gain from breeding independently (“benefits-of-philopatry” hypothesis, BP) or to when inclusive fitness benefits no longer outweigh the benefits from independent breeding (“kin selection” hypothesis, KS). Here, we show in three experiments that both HS and BP determine the extent of co-operative breeding in the cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher. Contrary to the KS, individuals significantly avoided settlement with related individuals, and an additional settlement experiment confirmed this result. Our results suggest that kin structure in these cichlids emerges from limits on dispersal, but if such barriers are absent, cichlids prefer to settle with unrelated individuals to maximize the benefits of direct reproductive participation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many studies have found that seemingly unconnected behaviors are correlated into behavioral syndromes. These behavioral syndromes may be the consequence of interindividual variation in life-history strategies. Only few studies have investigated the role of behavioral syndromes in cooperatively breeding species, despite the fact that one would expect particular large variation in behavior due to the wealth of life-history decisions a cooperative breeder faces. In a longitudinal study, we repeatedly tested individuals of the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher for exploration, boldness, and aggression and tested whether these behaviors were sex specific; whether they were interrelated; and whether they were connected to growth and to 2 major life-history decisions, helping, and dispersal. In both sexes, explorative behavior was correlated over time, even though after sexual maturity males increased their exploration rate. In both sexes, exploration, boldness, and aggression correlated when mature, and in females, helping behavior was part of the syndrome. No relationships with growth were detected. Helping and dispersal were related to each other in males, whereas females hardly dispersed. We suggest that the differences in the life histories between males and females (male dispersal vs. female philopatry) lead to the differences in behavioral types observed and also to the differences in the stability of the behavioral syndromes between the sexes. The links between dispersal and helping in males and the behavioral types and helping in females highlight the necessity to study multiple traits to understand the evolution and maintenance of variation in cooperative behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]