Data from: Stingless bee foragers experience more thermally stressful microclimates but have wider thermal tolerance breadths than other worker subcastes

<p>The current state of anthropogenic climate change is of particular concern for insects, especially in the tropics where the effects are predicted to be the most deleterious. Researching climatic tolerance in social insects is challenging because adaptations can exist at both an individual level and a societal level. However, these studies are important because social insects comprise a tremendous portion of the planet's animal biomass, biodiversity, and include many important pollinators. Considering how individual physiologies construct group-level adaptations can improve the accuracy of climate change impact assessments for a variety of social species. <em>Tetragonisca angustula</em> is a neotropical stingless bee species known to exhibit particularly high worker subcaste specialization in the form of a morphologically distinct soldier caste, a trait most commonly found and studied in ants and termites. We used this model species to investigate 1) whether age- and size-differentiated task groups differ in thermal tolerance, 2) which worker subcastes operate closest to their thermal limits, and 3) the extent to which behavioral thermoregulation via shifting active foraging times can offset thermal stress in this species. We measured the thermal tolerance (CT_max and CT_min) of smaller-bodied foragers, and two soldier sub-castes (hovering guards and standing guards) in <em>T. angustula</em>. Despite the difference in body size between the foragers and guards, no differences in the upper or lower thermal limits were observed. However, the average thermal tolerance breadth of foragers was significantly larger than that of guards, indicating that soldiers at the nest entrance are more thermally specialized than foragers. Temperatures at foraging sites were more variable than at nest entrances, which caused warming tolerance to be significantly lower among small-bodied foragers as compared to either hovering guards or standing guards. The magnitude of warming tolerances indicated a low risk of imminent climate change impacts in this environment, but our results suggest that as temperatures increase, foragers are likely to meet their upper thermal limits before other worker subcastes. Foragers may shift the times they are active as a form of thermoregulation which could selectively impact pollination rates for plants leading to repercussions on agriculture and ecosystem functioning. This work establishes novel approaches to predicting climatic change risk in heterogeneous cooperative societies.</p>