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Castes in Xylocopine Bees

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Abstract

Xylocopinae are not usually thought of as having castes and two of the three major included tribes are not or scarcely mentioned in accounts of social behavior in bees (e.g., Michener 1974a). The methods and objectives of this review are the same as for the Halictinae treated in the preceding chapter. The only xylocopine tribe treated in detail in 1974 is now called the Allodapini (Michener 1974a, Chapter 27), then called simply the allodapine group of Ceratinini. We now know that some species in the other tribes are also, in varying degrees, social. Such species have, in some nests, two or more adult females with division of activities among them and sometimes behaviorally recognizable castes. This chapter is devoted largely to a descriptive account of the evidence for castes in xylocopine bees, with enough general natural history to show the relations of the castes to the life cycles of the species. So far as known no xylocopines are obligately eusocial.

Contribution number 1905 from the Department of Entomology, University of Kansas, Lawrence

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Entomology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Charles D. Michener

  2. Departments of Systematics & Ecology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Charles D. Michener

  3. Departments of Snow Entomological Museum, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Charles D. Michener

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  1. Charles D. Michener
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zoologisches Institut Lehrstuhl Entwicklungsphysiologie, Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 28, 7400, Tübingen 1, Germany

    Wolf Engels

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Michener, C.D. (1990). Castes in Xylocopine Bees. In: Engels, W. (eds) Social Insects. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74490-7_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74490-7_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-74492-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-74490-7

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