Figure 3.
Effect of irs knockdown on age of first foraging in high pollen hoarding strain bees in (a) colony 1 and (b) colony 2. We observed an overall effect of treatment in the high strain for both colony 1 (Kaplan–Meier: χ2 = 16.8, p = 0.0002; n = 214) and (b) colony 2 (Kaplan–Meier: χ2 = 7.1, p = 0.028, n = 230). The irs knockdown group (hIRS) foraged significantly earlier than did the GFP-injected control group (hGFP) in both colonies (Cox–Mantel: Colony 1: p = 0.039, Colony 2: p = 0.011). No effects of handling and injection were observed (Cox–Mantel: GFP vs non-handled reference (hNoI), Colony 1: p = 0.055, Colony 2: p = 0.984).