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Neurobiology and Behaviour: Behaviour

Insect castes, dominance hierarchies, territory and courtship

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 3

Overview

Dominance hierarchy and sexual selection.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Name the three castes of a honey bee colony and give the role of each.

Key term

Why is the communication of social insects described as innate?

Evaluation

Give three advantages of a dominance hierarchy.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is a caste?

    Model answer

    A caste is a group of individuals within a colony that differ in form from the others and carry out a particular set of tasks.

  2. 2

    Name the three castes of a honey bee colony and give the role of each.

    Model answer

    The queen is the single fertile female and lays all the eggs, the drones are males whose role is to fertilise a queen, and the workers are sterile females that forage, build the comb, feed the larvae and defend the colony.

  3. 3

    What decides whether a female honey bee larva becomes a queen or a worker?

    Model answer

    The food decides it, since a larva fed on royal jelly throughout its development becomes a queen while one moved onto pollen and nectar becomes a worker.

  4. 4

    How does a queen honey bee prevent the workers from breeding?

    Model answer

    She secretes a pheromone that is passed from bee to bee through the colony and suppresses the development of the workers' ovaries.

  5. 5

    What information does the waggle dance of a honey bee convey?

    Model answer

    It gives the direction and the distance of a food source, since the angle of the waggle run from the vertical equals the angle of the source from the sun, and the longer the waggle run lasts the further away the food lies.

  6. 6

    Why is the communication of social insects described as innate?

    Model answer

    The dances and pheromone responses are performed correctly the first time without being learned, and every member of the colony responds in the same way, so the colony can be coordinated without any individual experience.

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