关键词:  , 木蜂, 社会性行为, 巢内行为, 社会多态性, 交配策略, 领地行为

Abstract:  Large carpenter bees (the genus Xylocopa), as an important group of bees (Apidae), play an important role in studying early stages of insect social evolution. This article reviewed the research progress on nesting habits, social behaviors, and mating strategies of Xylocopa. Investigations in recent years showed that nest architecture is linked to numerous life history elements including the distribution of nesting events such as constructing cells and laying brood, brood size, provisioning efficiency, and susceptibility to parasitism. Competition among conspecific females at nesting sites increases as the population becomes larger, which is reflected by more intensive guarding of nests, especially during the late spring and summer. Nest guarding is not only against conspecific females but also against other species. This insect group presents the evolution tendency from solitary to eusociality, and exhibits subsocial, communal, semisocial and eusocial forms. Xylocopa is found to be socially polymorphic with both solitary and metasocial or semisocial nests in the same population. As for mating strategies, males of carpenter bees display certain morphological characters, which are useful to attract females for mating, and also have complex territorial behavior. These findings are not only important for us to understand behavioral biology of carpenter bees, but also helpful for further exploration in the evolution process of social bees.

Key words: Xylocopa, social behavior, in-nest ethology, social polymorphism, mating strategies, territorial behavior