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Sun, 20 Mar 2011 10:29:01 -0400 |
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I got the following comment Off List. It brought up an interesting point
- one that I think might be of interest to both the author and to the Bee-L
Congregation :). I like questions that cause me to stop and to think once
in awhile.
<I was asked: "Up to now I have only seen the phrase “drone congregation
areas.” It sounds much better to me.">
This comment is correct about the phrase "drone congregation area". The
places where drones gather have been called DCAs for Drone Congregation
Areas - I assume the authors of the phrase DCA were using the definition of
"gathered for an event" or "in attendance". But the primary definition of
the word "congregation" implies "church".
Aggregation is a synonym of congregation, meaning a group or mass, in this
case of drones. In biology, the word aggregation has the ecological
meaning of "a group sharing the same space", most often applied to organisms
living in the same space.
Scientist's are not supposed to anthropomorphize animal behavior, yet the
bee literature breaks that rule all the time - division of labor, nurse
bees, undertaker bees, "dance" language, etc. It might be fun to list how
many examples we can find of this - one of the oddities of papers about bees,
even the "scientific, peer-reviewed" articles turn a blind eye to this
trend.
So, you can choose to call these DCAs and perpetuate the convention of
breaking the rule by using the word congregation. Just keep in mind that the
phrase DCA implies that the drones know that they are gathered for the event
of a queen passing by; or maybe that they just want to hang out with the
boys - both of which have "human-like behavioral" implications.
I actually like word aggregation better - its a more neutral statement -
they're all gathered in the same space.
Jerry
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