Data from: Age-dependent hypopharyngeal gland size and protein content of stingless bee workers, Tetragonula pagdeni.
Data files
Aug 23, 2024 version files 111.01 KB
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PONE-D-24-15848_Complete_data.xlsx
106.78 KB
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README.md
4.22 KB
Abstract
Eusocial insects, such as stingless bees (Meliponini), depend on division of labour, overlapping generations, and collaborative brood care to ensure the functionality and success of their colony. Female workers transition through a range of age-specific tasks during their lifespan (i.e., age-polyethism) and play a central role in the success of a colony. These age-specific tasks (e.g., brood care or foraging) often closely coincide with key physiological changes necessary to ensure optimal performance. However, our understanding of how nutrition, age, and polyethism may affect the development of such physiological traits in stingless bees remains limited. Here we show that pollen consumption and age-polyethism govern hypopharyngeal gland (HPG) acini size and protein content in Tetragonula pagdeni. By conducting a controlled laboratory experiment we monitored the effect of pollen consumption on worker bee survival as well as assessed how a pollen diet and age affected their HPG acini width and protein content. Further, we sampled nurses and foragers from field colonies to measure the effect of age-polyethism on HPG acini width. We found that pollen consumption enhanced survival and led to increased HPG acini width and protein content and that HPG acini were as expected, the largest in nurse bees. Our findings highlight the beneficial effects of an adequate diet for physiological development and health in stingless bees and reveal that age-polyethism is the key factor governing HPG size in worker bees. As HPGs are imperative for collaborative brood care - an essential component of eusociality - the data provide a foundation for future studies to investigate the impact of potential environmental stressors on a critical physiological trait in stingless bees which may serve as a proxy to understand the effects at the colony level.
README
This PONE-D-24-15848_Complete data.xlsx file was generated on 2024-03-22 by Dr. Lars Straub
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Title of Dataset: "PONE-D-24-15848_Complete data.xlsx".
- Author Information A. Principal Investigator Contact Information Name: Lars Straub Institution: Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Address: Schwarzenburgstrasse 161, 3097 Liebefeld, Bern, Switzerland Email: lars.straub@unibe.ch
- Date of data collection (single date, range, approximate date): Between January and May 2023
- Geographic location of data collection: The study was performed at the King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, Rayong Campus, Rayong, Thailand
- Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data: Support was provided by the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, and the Vinetum Foundation to L.S. Further, this project was funded by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT). There was no additional external funding received for this study
DATA & FILE OVERVIEW
- File List: Excel file ("PONE-D-24-15848_Complete data.xlsx") has three sheets. Sheets 1, 2, and 3 have the complete raw data required to repeat all the statistical analyses.
- Relationship between files, if important: Yes, however, all statistical tests can be run independently as all the relevant data is provided per sheet.
- Additional related data collected that was not included in the current data package: None.
- Are there multiple versions of the dataset? No
METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION
Please see the manuscript for details.
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR SHEET 1 (Survival):
1. Number of variables: 7
2. Number of cases/rows: 360
3. Variable List:
Sample: Number of the individual bees (i.e., specimen)
TreatmentName: This is the name of the respective treatment
Treatment: Numeric numbering of treatment
Cage: The respective cage in which the bee (specimen) was in
Pollen: Did the specimen receive pollen (binary response; 0 = no pollen and 1 = pollen)
Age: Age in days of how old the bee was
Status: Did the individual survive until the end of our experiment (binary response, with 0 being no and 1 being yes)
4. Missing data codes: None.
5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None.
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR SHEET 2 (HPG):
1. Number of variables: 11
2. Number of cases/rows: 1800
3. Variable List:
Sample: Number of the individual bees (i.e., specimen)
Specimen: The specific ID of the bee used
Replicate: The individual acini in the HPG measured
Baseline: Was the sample a baseline individual that was not exposed to a treatment (binary yes no response; 0 = not baseline and 1 = baseline)
Treatment: Numeric numbering of treatment
Colony: Was the bee directly sampled from the field colony (binary response ; 0 = laboratory and 1 = field)
Pollen: Did the specimen receive pollen (binary response; 0 = no pollen and 1 = pollen))
Age: Age of the specimen (i.e., bee)
Cage: The respective cage in which the bee (specimen) was in
AciniSize: The response variable is the size of the acini (in um)
4. Missing data codes: NA. Missing data means that we were not able to collect the specific data for this specimen.
5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None.
DATA-SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR SHEET 3 (Protein):
1. Number of variables: 7
2. Number of cases/rows: 24
3. Variable List:
Sample: Number of the individual bees (i.e., specimen)
Specimen: The specific ID of the bee used
TreatmentName: This is the name of the respective treatment
Treatment: Numeric numbering of treatment
Baseline: Was the sample a baseline individual that was not exposed to a treatment (binary yes no response; 0 = not exposed and 1 = exposed)
Pollen: Did the specimen receive pollen (binary response; 0 = no pollen and 1 = pollen))
Age: Age of the specimen (i.e., bee)
ProteinContent(ug/ml): The response variable is the protein content measured in the HPGs measured in ug per mL
4. Missing data codes: None.
5. Specialized formats or other abbreviations used: None.