Common furrow bee

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Common furrow bee
Common furrow bee (Lasioglossum calceatum)

Common furrow bee ( Lasioglossum calceatum )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Hymenoptera (Hymenoptera)
Family : Narrow and furrow bees (Halictidae)
Genre : Lasioglossum
Type : Common furrow bee
Scientific name
Lasioglossum calceatum
( Scopoli , 1763)

The common furrow bee ( Lasioglossum calceatum ) is a European species of bee from the genus of furrow bees ( Lasioglossum ).

features

The females of Lasioglossum calceatum reach a body length of about seven to ten millimeters, so they are noticeably smaller than a honey bee . The animals are blackish in color, with the following exceptions: the apical half of the mandibles is reddish brown, the underside of the antenna whip (flagellum) is dark brown, the wing scales ( tegulae ) are partially brownish, the spurs of the rails are yellow, the rear sections of the Tergites of the free abdomen are broad yellowish brown and translucent. The body is hairy from whitish to light yellowish brown and is therefore indistinctly marked. The hairiness is predominantly of moderate density. Scattered hairs are present on the tergites of the abdomen, some of which condense into indistinct transverse ligaments in the basal sections of the middle tergites (generic characteristic), light-colored end ligaments (as in the genus Halictus ) do not occur.

L. calceatum , Malvern , UK

As a variation , part of the tergites of the free abdomen can also be colored red in both sexes. The color variant was called subsp. rubens , but is probably just a variation without taxonomic significance.

The animals have a longitudinal furrow or a "central part" in the hair on the last segment of the abdomen, from which their German name furrow bees is derived. They can be distinguished from the genus Halictus , with which they share this characteristic, by the lack of end ligaments on the abdomen gites. Belonging to the subgenus Evylaeus is shown by a characteristic of the wing veins : The posterior submarginal cross veins, the veins 1r-m and 2r-m are pale and more indistinct than the first cross vein. The species differs from similar species in the combination of the following features: The arched base of the first free abdomen sterngite is smooth and shiny, the tergite in the center sparsely and irregularly dotted, the shiny tergite sometimes with a faint, bluish metallic sheen. Tergite apart from the basal bandages neither with further hair bands nor with felt scaly scales. On the trunk section, the mesonotum is densely dotted and slightly shiny. The dorsal surface of the propodeum is somewhat longer than the metanotum, with a distinct transverse keel, the sides are slightly wrinkled, the plate on the upper side is wetted. When viewed from the front, the head is rounded, about as long as it is wide. The forehead above the clypeus and its basal half with fine, very dense and even puncture.

In nature, as with the help of photos, Lasioglossum calceatum can not be distinguished from some other species of the genus. A very similar species is its sister species Lasioglossum albipes in particular .

Notes on the name

Their generic name can be interpreted after the ancient Greek lasios ('shaggy', 'thickly hairy') and glossa ('tongue', 'language') in the sense of a “hairy, bristly tongue”. Their species name comes from the Latin calceus , which can mean something like 'shoe'.

Occurrence and ecology

The furrow bee Lasioglossum calceatum inhabits a large, Palearctic area in the temperate zone , from Ireland in the west to Central and East Asia, to Manchuria, the Ussuri region and Japan in the east. It is one of the most common wild bee species in Central Europe and is not considered endangered here. In the Alps it occurs up to 1800 meters, in the central Alps up to 2000 meters. In the south of its range, in the Mediterranean area, it is bound to mountains.

As an ubiquist (i.e. it is adaptable to a large number of biotopes), it looks for warm, dry to cool, moist locations, e.g. B. also forest clearings, parks and gardens. The species is polylectic, that is, it is not tied to the flowers of specific plants, but uses a large number of different flowers, depending on what is available.

As a cuckoo bee , the blood bee can parasitize Sphecodes monilicornis in Lasioglossum calceatum .

Life cycle and social behavior

The common furrow bee is a (primitive) eusocial type of bee. That means: There are two castes , the fertile sex animals, called queens, and the workers, who normally do not reproduce themselves, but help with the rearing of related animals (mostly their sisters). The kinship group with the species has found the particular interest of evolutionary biologists because not all species are eusocial (as is the case with honey bees, for example), but the entire range of possibilities for them, depending on the species and living conditions, from individually (solitary) nesting species up to eusocial ones. This allows the circumstances of the evolution of social associations (a central problem of the theory of evolution ) to be examined comparatively.

The life cycle of the common furrow bee usually looks like this: In spring (March to April) the overwintered, imaginal females appear from their winter quarters and start visiting flowers. Shortly afterwards they look for a suitable place to plant their soil nest, an open or little overgrown, sandy or loamy ground. The species colonizes flat areas or embankments (i.e. does not need steep slopes or nesting aids ) and is not picky about the type of soil . Although the nest is most often created by a single female, it also happens that several females start a nest together ( pleometrosis ). These are often, but not always, sisters hibernating together, the life cycle is then called semi-social. However, they can also be unrelated individuals, in rare exceptional cases even individuals of another species (the sister species Lasioglossum albipes ). In this case, only one individual lays eggs, the others become functional workers who support this queen without reproducing. To found a nest, the females dig a vertical main shaft in the ground. From this vertical corridor a shorter horizontal corridor is driven, at the end of which a small cavity is enlarged. Then brood cells are formed, which are provided with pollen and sealed after the eggs have been laid. The aggregation of brood cells in the cavity is sometimes referred to as a honeycomb. The biological sense of the structure of the cells within an earth cavity could be that the humidity can be better regulated. Each brood cell is provided by the fertile female with collected pollen, on which an egg is laid. The cell is then closed. However, it is subsequently reopened and inspected on various occasions, and then closed again.

When all cells are ready, the species enters a period of inactivity. It closes the burrow from the outside and remains in it until the new brood has hatched. The development from egg to new adults takes about a month. The adults of the summer brood consist of males and females of different body sizes (with a narrow area of ​​overlap). The smaller females then act as workers, the larger females develop into new queens. In the first brood, these mainly serve as replacement sex animals if the original queen fails, but they can also start building the nest independently. Most of the females of the first brood become workers. The proportion of males (drones) in the first generation is never more than 18 percent.

Then the workers fly out (for a short period also the nest-building queen) and stockpile brood cells, which the queen creates in the old nest. The newly hatched adults (males and females) of the summer generation (almost) all develop into sex animals, which withdraw from around the end of August and hibernate before they start building their nests again the following spring. In exceptional cases, even the old queen can survive and start a new brood in a new nest in the next year.

In Japan it has been observed that the animals behave differently in the mountains with a colder climate: Here the period of activity does not begin until June, the second brood fails completely. Under these conditions, Lasioglossum calceatum does not behave socially, but as with all solitary bees, each female only hatches her own offspring.

Hazard and protection

Lasioglossum calceatum is not considered endangered, but, like all wild bees, is particularly protected in Germany according to the Federal Species Protection Ordinance (BArtSchV).

literature

  • Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. NaturBuchVerlag, 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 , pp. 228-229.

Web links

Commons : Common furrow bee ( Lasioglossum calceatum )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Video clips

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ryuki Murao & Osamu Tadauchi (2007): A Revision of the Subgenus Evylaeus of the Genus Lasioglossum in Japan (Hymenoptera, Halictidae) Part I. Esakia 47: 169-254.
  2. ↑ PAW Ebmer (1995): Asiatic Halictidae, 3. The species group of Lasioglossum carinate- Evylaeus (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Halictidae: Halictinae). Linz biological contributions 27/2: 525-652.
  3. ↑ cf. Illustration in the Atlas Hymenoptera
  4. ↑ PAW Ebmer: The bees of the genus Halictus Latr. sl in the greater Linz area (Hymenoptera, Apidae). Part III. In: Natural History Yearbook of the City of Linz. Volume 17, 63-156 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
  5. ↑ a b http://www.naturspaziergang.de/Wildbienen/Halictinae/Lasioglossum_calceatum.htm
  6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. gallery @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bb-artengalerie.de
  7. ↑ Bryn N. Danforth (1999): Phylogeny of the bee genus Lasioglossum (Hymenoptera: Halictidae) based on mitochondrial COI sequence data. Systematic Entomology 24: 377-393.
  8. ↑ Nederlandse Bijen website: Gewone geurgroefbij Lasioglossum calceatum , accessed on December 18, 2015.
  9. ↑ a b c http://www.wildbienen.de/eb-lasio.htm www.wildbienen.de
  10. ↑ http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=bee/halictidae/lasioglossum-calceatum
  11. ↑ a b Shoichi F. Sakagami & Meiyo Munakata (1972): Distribution and Bionomics of a Transpalaearctic Eusocial Halictine Bee, Lasioglossum (Evylaeus) calceatum, in Northern Japan, with Reference to Its Solitary Life Cycle at High Altitude. Journal of the Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University. Series 6, Zoology 18 (3): 411-439.
  12. ^ A b c Paul Westrich: The wild bees of Baden-Württemberg. Special part. 2nd edition 1990. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1990 ISBN 3 8001 3317 2
  13. ↑ Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. NaturBuchVerlag 1997; S. ISBN 3-89440-241-5
  14. ↑ Michael P. Schwarz, Miriam H. Richards, Bryan N. Danforth (2007): Changing Paradigms in Insect Social Evolution: Insights from Halictine and Allodapine Bees. Annual Review of Entomology 52: 127-150. doi : 10.1146 / annurev.ento.51.110104.150950
  15. ↑ Fascination of wild bees: Social bees: Semi-social way of life. www.wildbienen.info, published by Paul Westrich , accessed on December 28, 2015.
  16. ↑ a b c d C. Plateaux-Quénu (1992): Comparative biological data in two closely related eusocial species: Evylaeus calceatus (Scop.) And Evylaeus albipes (F.) (Hym., Halictinae). Insectes Sociaux 39: 351-364.
  17. ↑ Description in eol Encyclopedia of Life , accessed on December 22, 2015.