{"doi":"10.1098/rspb.2021.0033","title":"Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee","abstract":"<jats:p>Social groups form when the costs of breeding independently exceed fitness costs imposed by group living. The costs of independent breeding can often be energetic, especially for animals performing expensive behaviours, such as nest construction. To test the hypothesis that nesting costs can drive sociality by disincentivizing independent nest founding, we measured the energetics of nest construction and inheritance in a facultatively social carpenter bee (<jats:italic>Xylocopa sonorina</jats:italic>Smith), which bores tunnel nests in wood. We measured metabolic rates of bees excavating wood and used computerized tomography images of nesting logs to measure excavation volumes. From these data, we demonstrate costly energetic investments in nest excavation of a minimum 4.3 kJ per offspring provisioned, an expense equivalent to nearly 7 h of flight. This high, potentially prohibitive cost of nest founding may explain why females compete for existing nests rather than constructing new ones, often leading to the formation of social groups. Further, we found that nest inheritors varied considerably in their investment in nest renovation, with costs ranging more than 12-fold (from 7.08 to 89.1 kJ energy), probably reflecting differences in inherited nest quality. On average, renovation costs were lower than estimated new nest construction costs, with some nests providing major savings. These results suggest that females may join social groups to avoid steep energetic costs, but that the benefits of this strategy are not experienced equally.</jats:p>","journal":"Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences","year":2021,"id":33659,"datarank":0.9310966281991887,"base_score":3.295836866004329,"endowment":3.295836866004329,"self_citation_contribution":0.4943755299006494,"citation_network_contribution":0.4367210982985393,"self_endowment_contribution":0.4943755299006494,"citer_contribution":0.4367210982985393,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":26,"citer_count":18,"citers_with_citation_signal":16,"citers_with_endowment":16,"datacite_reuse_total":7,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":175677,"name":"Trevor P. Fox","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":175678,"name":"Jon F. Harrison","orcid":"0000-0001-5223-216X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":175680,"name":"Jennifer H. Fewell","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":175676,"name":"Madeleine M. Ostwald","orcid":"0000-0002-9869-8835","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"base_score":3.295836866004329,"endowment":3.295836866004329,"datacite_reuse_total":7,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"33906404","pmcid":"PMC8080015","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W3159137748","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Directorate for Biological Sciences","grant_id":"Graduate Research Fellowship","title":null}],"total_grants":1,"fwci":8.393,"citation_percentile":0.97309134,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2021,"count":5},{"year":2022,"count":9},{"year":2023,"count":3},{"year":2024,"count":6},{"year":2025,"count":3}],"oa_status":"green","license":"public-domain","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0033","host_type":"GREEN"},{"url":"https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2021.0033","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rspb.2021.0033","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33906404","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/8080015","host_type":"repository"}],"fields_of_study":["Plant and animal studies","Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior","Animal Behavior and Reproduction","Medicine","Biology","Environmental Science","Animals","Bees","Female","Nesting Behavior","Social Behavior"],"mesh_terms":["Animals","Bees","Female","Nesting Behavior","Social Behavior"],"keywords":["Nest (protein structural motif)","Sociality","Ecology","Social animal","Foraging","Inclusive fitness","Reproductive success","Biology","Demography","Sociology","Metabolic rate","Nest building","Energetic Costs","Group Living","Social Strategy"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[{"doi":"10.5061/dryad.2280gb5r0","title":"Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee","publisher":"Dryad","resource_type":"Dataset"},{"doi":"10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5368993.v1","title":"Supplementary material from \"Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee\"","publisher":"The Royal Society","resource_type":"Collection"},{"doi":"10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5368993","title":"Supplementary material from \"Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee\"","publisher":"The Royal Society","resource_type":"Collection"},{"doi":"10.6084/m9.figshare.14386891","title":"Excavation of hard wood from Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee","publisher":"The Royal Society","resource_type":"Audiovisual"},{"doi":"10.6084/m9.figshare.14386891.v1","title":"Excavation of hard wood from Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee","publisher":"The Royal Society","resource_type":"Audiovisual"},{"doi":"10.6084/m9.figshare.14386888","title":"Excavation of soft wood from Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee","publisher":"The Royal Society","resource_type":"Audiovisual"},{"doi":"10.6084/m9.figshare.14386888.v1","title":"Excavation of soft wood from Social consequences of energetically costly nest construction in a facultatively social bee","publisher":"The Royal Society","resource_type":"Audiovisual"}],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[{"name":"doi"}],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-06-09T16:39:27.317368Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}