Resource Defense and Alternative Mating Tactics in the Banksia Bee, <i>Hylaeus alcyoneus</i> (Erichson)

Abstract

Abstract Some males of the Australian colletid bee Hylaeus alcyoneus defend single flowering spikes of various species of Banksia , selecting spikes in the maturational state most attractive to foraging females. Other males do not engage in food resource defense but instead nonaggressively patrol a circuit that takes them to many spikes, some occupied, others not held by territorial males. When territory owners are experimentally removed, replacement males quickly claim the vacated spikes. Some of these males have been patrolling previously, showing that patrolling and territoriality are alternative tactics in a conditional strategy. Territorial males are larger on average than patrolling males, replacement territory holders, and females. Male territoriality at flowers appears in several other Hylaeus , and in these and other bees, resource defense tactics are often associated with specialized foraging requirements of females and a patchily distributed resource.