Slow-fast differences in physiology, behavior and life history in honey bees

The metabolic rate of an organism, which determines the rate of all biological processes, has been strongly linked to explaining behavioral differences at the individual level. This applies to the pace-of-life model which places individuals within a species on a slow-fast continuum that is composed of correlated differences in behavior, physiology, and life history traits. While these correlations might impose some constraints at the individual level, the consequences of such constraints can be potentially relaxed in animals living in social groups where the social phenotype is an emergent outcome of the individual phenotypes that constitute the group. Using honeybees as a model, we measured metabolic rate and a number of physiological, behavioral and life history parameters in individual bees to test for these correlations that constitute the slow-fast axis. Our results show a complex interrelationship across these parameters that show consistent but mixed support for metabolic rate being a fundamental driver of slow-fast phenotypes in support of the pace-of-life theory in the social context.