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A. K. BK, George EA, Brockmann A. Tropical and montane Apis cerana show distinct dance-distance calibration curves. J Exp Biol 2024; 227:jeb247510. [PMID: 38853597 PMCID: PMC11418176 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.247510] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/31/2024] [Indexed: 06/11/2024]
Abstract
Social bees have evolved sophisticated communication systems to recruit nestmates to newly found food sources. As foraging ranges can vary from a few hundred meters to several kilometers depending on the environment or season, populations of social bee species living in different climate zones likely show specific adaptations in their recruitment communication. Accordingly, studies in the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, demonstrated that temperate populations exhibit shallower dance-calibration curves compared with tropical populations. Here, we report the first comparison of calibration curves for three Indian Apis cerana lineages: the tropical Apis indica, and the two montane Himalayan populations Apis cerana cerana (Himachal Pradesh) and Apis cerana kashmirensis (Jammu and Kashmir). We found that the colonies of the two montane A. cerana populations show dance-distance calibration curves with significantly shallower slopes than those of the tropical A. indica. Next, we transferred A. c. cerana colonies to Bangalore (∼ 2600 km away) to obtain calibration curves in the same location as A. indica. The common garden experiment confirmed this difference in slopes, implying that the lineages exhibit genetically fixed differences in dance-distance coding. However, the slopes of the calibration curves of the transferred A. c. cerana colonies were also significantly higher than those of the colonies tested in their original habitat, indicating an important effect of the environment. The differences in dance-distance coding between temperate and tropical A. cerana lineages resemble those described for Apis mellifera, suggesting that populations of both species independently evolved similar adaptations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharath Kumar A. K.
- National Centre for Biological Sciences - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru 560065, India
- Department of Apiculture, University of Agricultural Sciences - GKVK, Bengaluru 560065, India
| | - Ebi Antony George
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Axel Brockmann
- National Centre for Biological Sciences - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru 560065, India
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2
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Ioannou CC, Laskowski KL. A multi-scale review of the dynamics of collective behaviour: from rapid responses to ontogeny and evolution. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20220059. [PMID: 36802782 PMCID: PMC9939272 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2023] [Accepted: 01/26/2023] [Indexed: 02/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Collective behaviours, such as flocking in birds or decision making by bee colonies, are some of the most intriguing behavioural phenomena in the animal kingdom. The study of collective behaviour focuses on the interactions between individuals within groups, which typically occur over close ranges and short timescales, and how these interactions drive larger scale properties such as group size, information transfer within groups and group-level decision making. To date, however, most studies have focused on snapshots, typically studying collective behaviour over short timescales up to minutes or hours. However, being a biological trait, much longer timescales are important in animal collective behaviour, particularly how individuals change over their lifetime (the domain of developmental biology) and how individuals change from one generation to the next (the domain of evolutionary biology). Here, we give an overview of collective behaviour across timescales from the short to the long, illustrating how a full understanding of this behaviour in animals requires much more research attention on its developmental and evolutionary biology. Our review forms the prologue of this special issue, which addresses and pushes forward understanding the development and evolution of collective behaviour, encouraging a new direction for collective behaviour research. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Collective behaviour through time'.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Kate L. Laskowski
- Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
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3
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Shackleton K, Balfour NJ, Al Toufailia H, James E, Ratnieks FL. Honey bee waggle dances facilitate shorter foraging distances and increased foraging aggregation. Anim Behav 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.01.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/25/2023]
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4
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Lin CH, Suresh S, Matcham E, Monagan P, Curtis H, Richardson RT, Johnson RM. Soybean is a Common Nectar Source for Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in a Midwestern Agricultural Landscape. JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 2022; 115:1846-1851. [PMID: 36130184 DOI: 10.1093/jee/toac140] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Large-scale soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] cultivation has substantially transformed the Midwestern landscape in recent decades. Floral nectar produced by immense fields of soybeans has the potential to influence foraging ecology and resource accumulation of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies. In this study, we combined microscopic and molecular pollen analysis of honey samples with waggle dance inference of spatial foraging patterns to demonstrate that honey bees routinely forage on soybeans in Ohio. In analyzing honey samples from across the state, we found ubiquitous presence of soybean pollen in honey collected from agricultural lands during soybean bloom. The abundance of soybean pollen in honey increased with the amount of soybean fields surrounding the apiaries. Honey bee waggle dances recorded during soybean bloom revealed that honey bees preferred soybean fields for foraging over other habitat types. With these results, future research efforts aimed at enhancing mutual interactions between soybeans and honey bees may represent an unexplored pathway for increasing soybean production while supporting honey bees and other pollinators in the surrounding landscape.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chia-Hua Lin
- Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory, 2501 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Sreelakshmi Suresh
- Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory, 2501 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Emma Matcham
- Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- Department of Agronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32605, USA
| | - Paityn Monagan
- Metro Early College High School, 1929 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Hailey Curtis
- Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory, 2501 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Rodney T Richardson
- Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University, Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory, 2501 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Reed M Johnson
- Department of Entomology, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, The Ohio State University, 1680 Madison Avenue, Wooster, OH 44691, USA
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5
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Steele TN, Schürch R, Ohlinger BD, Couvillon MJ. Apple orchards feed honey bees during, but even more so after, bloom. Ecosphere 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.4228] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
| | - Roger Schürch
- Department of Entomology Virginia Tech Blacksburg Virginia USA
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6
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Ohlinger BD, Schürch R, Silliman MR, Steele TN, Couvillon MJ. Dance-communicated distances support nectar foraging as a supply-driven system. Biol Lett 2022; 18:20220155. [PMID: 36043303 PMCID: PMC9428537 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0155] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Much like human consumers, honeybees adjust their behaviours based on resources' supply and demand. For both, interactions occur in fluctuating conditions. Honeybees weigh the cost of flight against the benefit of nectar and pollen, which are nutritionally distinct resources that serve different purposes: bees collect nectar continuously to build large honey stores for overwintering, but they collect pollen intermittently to build modest stores for brood production periods. Therefore, nectar foraging can be considered a supply-driven process, whereas pollen foraging is demand-driven. Here we compared the foraging distances, communicated by waggle dances and serving as a proxy for cost, for nectar and pollen in three ecologically distinct landscapes in Virginia. We found that honeybees foraged for nectar at distances 14% further than for pollen across all three sites (n = 6224 dances, p < 0.001). Specific temporal dynamics reveal that monthly nectar foraging occurs at greater distances compared with pollen foraging 85% of the time. Our results strongly suggest that honeybee foraging cost dynamics are consistent with nectar supply-driven and pollen demand-driven processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bradley D Ohlinger
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
| | - Roger Schürch
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
| | - Mary R Silliman
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
| | - Taylor N Steele
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
| | - Margaret J Couvillon
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
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7
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Silliman MR, Schürch R, Malone S, Taylor SV, Couvillon MJ. Row crop fields provide mid-summer forage for honey bees. Ecol Evol 2022; 12:e8979. [PMID: 35784068 PMCID: PMC9170536 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8979] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Honey bees provide invaluable economic and ecological services while simultaneously facing stressors that may compromise their health. For example, agricultural landscapes, such as a row crop system, are necessary for our food production, but they may cause poor nutrition in bees from a lack of available nectar and pollen. Here, we investigated the foraging dynamics of honey bees in a row crop environment. We decoded, mapped, and analyzed 3459 waggle dances, which communicate the location of where bees collected food, for two full foraging seasons (April-October, 2018-2019). We found that bees recruited nestmates mostly locally (<2 km) throughout the season. The shortest communicated median distances (0.474 and 0.310 km), indicating abundant food availability, occurred in July in both years, which was when our row crops were in full bloom. We determined, by plotting and analyzing the communicated locations, that almost half of the mid-summer recruitment was to row crops, with 37% (2018) and 50% (2019) of honey bee dances indicating these fields. Peanut was the most attractive in July, followed by corn and cotton but not soybean. Overall, row crop fields are indicated by a surprisingly large proportion of recruitment dances, suggesting that similar agricultural landscapes may also provide mid-summer foraging opportunities for honey bees.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mary R. Silliman
- Department of Entomology (MC0319)Virginia TechBlacksburgVirginiaUSA
| | - Roger Schürch
- Department of Entomology (MC0319)Virginia TechBlacksburgVirginiaUSA
| | - Sean Malone
- Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension CenterVirginia TechSuffolkVirginiaUSA
| | - Sally V. Taylor
- Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension CenterVirginia TechSuffolkVirginiaUSA
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Ohlinger BD, Schürch R, Durzi S, Kietzman PM, Silliman MR, Couvillon MJ. Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Decrease Foraging But Not Recruitment After Neonicotinoid Exposure. JOURNAL OF INSECT SCIENCE (ONLINE) 2022; 22:6523142. [PMID: 35137133 PMCID: PMC8826047 DOI: 10.1093/jisesa/ieab095] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2021] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
Honey bees (Linnaeus, Hymenoptera: Apidae) are widely used as commercial pollinators and commonly forage in agricultural and urban landscapes containing neonicotinoid-treated plants. Previous research has demonstrated that honey bees display adverse behavioral and cognitive effects after treatment with sublethal doses of neonicotinoids. In laboratory studies, honey bees simultaneously increase their proportional intake of neonicotinoid-treated solutions and decrease their total solution consumption to some concentrations of certain neonicotinoids. These findings suggest that neonicotinoids might elicit a suboptimal response in honey bees, in which they forage preferentially on foods containing pesticides, effectively increasing their exposure, while also decreasing their total food intake; however, behavioral responses in semifield and field conditions are less understood. Here we conducted a feeder experiment with freely flying bees to determine the effects of a sublethal, field-realistic concentration of imidacloprid (IMD) on the foraging and recruitment behaviors of honey bees visiting either a control feeder containing a sucrose solution or a treatment feeder containing the same sucrose solution with IMD. We report that IMD-treated honey bees foraged less frequently (-28%) and persistently (-66%) than control foragers. Recruitment behaviors (dance frequency and dance propensity) also decreased with IMD, but nonsignificantly. Our results suggest that neonicotinoids inhibit honey bee foraging, which could potentially decrease food intake and adversely affect colony health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bradley D Ohlinger
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, 216 Price Hall, 170 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
| | - Roger Schürch
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, 216 Price Hall, 170 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
| | - Sharif Durzi
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, 216 Price Hall, 170 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
- Pasadena Office Natural Resources Department, SWCA Environmental Consultants, 51 W Dayton St, Pasadena, CA 91105, USA
| | - Parry M Kietzman
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, 216 Price Hall, 170 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
- School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech, 328 Smyth Hall, 185 Ag Quad Lane, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
| | - Mary R Silliman
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, 216 Price Hall, 170 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
| | - Margaret J Couvillon
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, 216 Price Hall, 170 Drillfield Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
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9
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Samuelson AE, Schürch R, Leadbeater E. Dancing bees evaluate central urban forage resources as superior to agricultural land. J Appl Ecol 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.14011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ash E. Samuelson
- Department of Biological Sciences Royal Holloway University of London Egham UK
| | - Roger Schürch
- Department of Entomology Virginia Tech Blacksburg VA USA
| | - Ellouise Leadbeater
- Department of Biological Sciences Royal Holloway University of London Egham UK
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10
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Kohl PL, Rutschmann B. Honey bees communicate distance via non-linear waggle duration functions. PeerJ 2021; 9:e11187. [PMID: 33868825 PMCID: PMC8029670 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.11187] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2020] [Accepted: 03/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Honey bees (genus Apis) can communicate the approximate location of a resource to their nestmates via the waggle dance. The distance to a goal is encoded by the duration of the waggle phase of the dance, but the precise shape of this distance-duration relationship is ambiguous: earlier studies (before the 1990s) proposed that it is non-linear, with the increase in waggle duration flattening with distance, while more recent studies suggested that it follows a simple linear function (i.e. a straight line). Strikingly, authors of earlier studies trained bees to much longer distances than authors of more recent studies, but unfortunately they usually measured the duration of dance circuits (waggle phase plus return phase of the dance), which is only a correlate of the bees’ distance signal. We trained honey bees (A. mellifera carnica) to visit sugar feeders over a relatively long array of distances between 0.1 and 1.7 km from the hive and measured the duration of both the waggle phase and the return phase of their dances from video recordings. The distance-related increase in waggle duration was better described by a non-linear model with a decreasing slope than by a simple linear model. The relationship was equally well captured by a model with two linear segments separated at a “break-point” at 1 km distance. In turn, the relationship between return phase duration and distance was sufficiently well described by a simple linear model. The data suggest that honey bees process flight distance differently before and beyond a certain threshold distance. While the physiological and evolutionary causes of this behavior remain to be explored, our results can be applied to improve the estimation of honey bee foraging distances based on the decoding of waggle dances.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick L Kohl
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Benjamin Rutschmann
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
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11
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Carr-Markell MK, Spivak M. External validation of the new calibration for mapping honey bee waggle dances. Anim Behav 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.12.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
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12
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Kohl PL, Thulasi N, Rutschmann B, George EA, Steffan-Dewenter I, Brockmann A. Adaptive evolution of honeybee dance dialects. Proc Biol Sci 2020; 287:20200190. [PMID: 32126959 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.0190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Efficient communication is highly important for the evolutionary success of social animals. Honeybees (genus Apis) are unique in that they communicate the spatial information of resources using a symbolic 'language', the waggle dance. Different honeybee species differ in foraging ecology but it remains unknown whether this shaped variation in the dance. We studied distance dialects-interspecific differences in how waggle duration relates to flight distance-and tested the hypothesis that these evolved to maximize communication precision over the bees' foraging ranges. We performed feeder experiments with Apis cerana, A. florea and A. dorsata in India and found that A. cerana had the steepest dialect, i.e. a rapid increase in waggle duration with increasing feeder distance, A. florea had an intermediate, and A. dorsata had the lowest dialect. By decoding dances for natural food sites, we inferred that the foraging range was smallest in A. cerana, intermediate in A. florea and largest in A. dorsata. The inverse correlation between foraging range and dialect was corroborated when comparing six (sub)species across the geographical range of the genus including previously published data. We conclude that dance dialects constitute adaptations resulting from a trade-off between the spatial range and the spatial accuracy of communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patrick L Kohl
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bellary Road, Bangalore 560065, India.,Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Neethu Thulasi
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bellary Road, Bangalore 560065, India.,Department of Apiculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bellary Road, Bangalore 560065, India
| | - Benjamin Rutschmann
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bellary Road, Bangalore 560065, India.,Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Ebi A George
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bellary Road, Bangalore 560065, India
| | - Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
| | - Axel Brockmann
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bellary Road, Bangalore 560065, India
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Carr-Markell MK, Demler CM, Couvillon MJ, Schürch R, Spivak M. Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats? PLoS One 2020; 15:e0228169. [PMID: 32049993 PMCID: PMC7015315 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228169] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2019] [Accepted: 01/08/2020] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies are valued for the pollination services that they provide. However, colony mortality has increased to unsustainable levels in some countries, including the United States. Landscape conversion to monocrop agriculture likely plays a role in this increased mortality by decreasing the food sources available to honey bees. Many land owners and organizations in the Upper Midwest region of the United States would like to restore/reconstruct native prairie habitats. With increasing public awareness of high bee mortality, many landowners and beekeepers have wondered whether these restored prairies could significantly improve honey bee colony nutrition. Conveniently, honey bees have a unique communication signal called a waggle dance, which indicates the locations of the flower patches that foragers perceive as highly profitable food sources. We used these communication signals to answer two main questions: First, is there any part of the season in which the foraging force of a honey bee colony will devote a large proportion of its recruitment efforts (waggle dances) to flower patches within prairies? Second, will honey bee foragers advertise specific taxa of native prairie flowers as profitable pollen sources? We decoded 1528 waggle dances in colonies located near two large, reconstructed prairies. We also collected pollen loads from a subset of waggle-dancing bees, which we then analyzed to determine the flower taxon advertised. Most dances advertised flower patches outside of reconstructed prairies, but the proportion of dances advertising nectar sources within prairies increased significantly in the late summer/fall at one site. Honey bees advertised seven native prairie taxa as profitable pollen sources, although the three most commonly advertised pollen taxa were non-native. Our results suggest that including certain native prairie flower taxa in reconstructed prairies may increase the chances that colonies will use those prairies as major food sources during the period of greatest colony growth and honey production.
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Affiliation(s)
- Morgan K. Carr-Markell
- Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Cora M. Demler
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America
| | - Margaret J. Couvillon
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America
| | - Roger Schürch
- Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America
| | - Marla Spivak
- Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States of America
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Collett TS. Path integration: how details of the honeybee waggle dance and the foraging strategies of desert ants might help in understanding its mechanisms. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2019; 222:222/11/jeb205187. [PMID: 31152122 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.205187] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
Path integration is a navigational strategy that gives an animal an estimate of its position relative to some starting point. For many decades, ingenious and probing behavioural experiments have been the only window onto the operation of path integration in arthropods. New methods have now made it possible to visualise the activity of neural circuits in Drosophila while they fly or walk in virtual reality. Studies of this kind, as well as electrophysiological recordings from single neurons in the brains of other insects, are revealing details of the neural mechanisms that control an insect's direction of travel and other aspects of path integration. The aim here is first to review the major features of path integration in foraging desert ants and honeybees, the current champion path integrators of the insect world, and second consider how the elaborate behaviour of these insects might be accommodated within the framework of the newly understood neural circuits. The discussion focuses particularly on the ability of ants and honeybees to use a celestial compass to give direction in Earth-based coordinates, and of honeybees to use a landscape panorama to provide directional guidance for path integration. The possibility is raised that well-ordered behaviour might in some cases substitute for complex circuitry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas S Collett
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
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15
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16
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Richardson RT, Curtis HR, Matcham EG, Lin C, Suresh S, Sponsler DB, Hearon LE, Johnson RM. Quantitative multi‐locus metabarcoding and waggle dance interpretation reveal honey bee spring foraging patterns in Midwest agroecosystems. Mol Ecol 2019; 28:686-697. [DOI: 10.1111/mec.14975] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2018] [Revised: 11/09/2018] [Accepted: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Hailey R. Curtis
- College of Veterinary Medicine The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio
| | - Emma G. Matcham
- Department of Horticulture and Crop Science The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio
| | - Chia‐Hua Lin
- Department of Entomology The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio
| | - Sreelakshmi Suresh
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio
| | - Douglas B. Sponsler
- Department of Entomology Pennsylvania State University University Park Pennsylvania
| | - Luke E. Hearon
- Department of Entomology The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio
| | - Reed M. Johnson
- Department of Entomology The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio
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17
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Barron AB, Plath JA. The evolution of honey bee dance communication: a mechanistic perspective. J Exp Biol 2017; 220:4339-4346. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.142778] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Honey bee dance has been intensively studied as a communication system, and yet we still know very little about the neurobiological mechanisms supporting how dances are produced and interpreted. Here, we discuss how new information on the functions of the central complex (CX) of the insect brain might shed some light on possible neural mechanisms of dance behaviour. We summarise the features of dance communication across the species of the genus Apis. We then propose that neural mechanisms of orientation and spatial processing found to be supported by the CX may function in dance communication also, and that this mechanistic link could explain some specific features of the dance form. This is purely a hypothesis, but in proposing this hypothesis, and how it might be investigated, we hope to stimulate new mechanistic analyses of dance communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew B. Barron
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
| | - Jenny Aino Plath
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
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18
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Sponsler DB, Matcham EG, Lin CH, Lanterman JL, Johnson RM. Spatial and taxonomic patterns of honey bee foraging: A choice test between urban and agricultural landscapes. JOURNAL OF URBAN ECOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1093/jue/juw008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
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Danner N, Molitor AM, Schiele S, Härtel S, Steffan-Dewenter I. Season and landscape composition affect pollen foraging distances and habitat use of honey bees. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2016; 26:1920-1929. [PMID: 27755712 DOI: 10.1890/15-1840.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2015] [Revised: 01/21/2016] [Accepted: 02/11/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) show a large variation in foraging distances and use a broad range of plant species as pollen resources, even in regions with intensive agriculture. However, it is unknown how increasing areas of mass-flowering crops like oilseed rape (Brassica napus; OSR) or a decrease of seminatural habitats (SNH) change the temporal and spatial availability of pollen resources for honey bee colonies, and thus foraging distances and frequency in different habitat types. We studied pollen foraging of honey bee colonies in 16 agricultural landscapes with independent gradients of OSR and SNH area within 2 km and used waggle dances and digital geographic maps with major land cover types to reveal the distance and visited habitat type on a landscape level. Mean pollen foraging distance of 1347 decoded bee dances was 1015 m (± 26 m; SEM). In spring, increasing area of flowering OSR within 2 km reduced mean pollen foraging distances from 1324 m to only 435 m. In summer, increasing cover of SNH areas close to the colonies (within 200 m radius) reduced mean pollen foraging distances from 846 to 469 m. Frequency of pollen foragers per habitat type, measured as the number of dances per hour and hectare, was equally high for SNH, grassland, and OSR fields, but lower for other crops and forests. In landscapes with a small proportion of SNH a significantly higher density of pollen foragers on SNH was observed, indicating that pollen resources in such simple agricultural landscapes are more limited. Overall, we conclude that SNH and mass-flowering crops can reduce foraging distances of honey bee colonies at different scales and seasons with possible benefits for the performance of honey bee colonies. Further, mixed agricultural landscapes with a high proportion of SNH reduce foraging densities of honey bees in SNH and thus possible competition for pollen resources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadja Danner
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany.
| | - Anna Maria Molitor
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Susanne Schiele
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Stephan Härtel
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
- Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany
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Schürch R, Ratnieks FLW, Samuelson EEW, Couvillon MJ. Dancing to her own beat: honey bee foragers communicate via individually calibrated waggle dances. J Exp Biol 2016; 219:1287-9. [PMID: 26944504 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.134874] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2015] [Accepted: 02/17/2016] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Communication signals often vary between individuals, even when one expects selection to favour accuracy and precision, such as the honey bee waggle dance, where foragers communicate to nestmates the direction and distance to a resource. Although many studies have examined intra-dance variation, or the variation within a dance, less is known about inter-dance variation, or the variation between dances. This is particularly true for distance communication. Here, we trained individually marked bees from three colonies to forage at feeders of known distances and monitored their dances to determine individual communication variation. We found that each honey bee possesses her own calibration: individual duration-distance calibrations varied significantly in both slopes and intercepts. The variation may incur a cost for communication, such that a dancer and recruit may misunderstand the communicated distance by as much as 50%. Future work is needed to understand better the mechanisms and consequences of individual variation in communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roger Schürch
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK Clinical Trials Unit, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Francis L W Ratnieks
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
| | - Elizabeth E W Samuelson
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Margaret J Couvillon
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
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Couvillon MJ, Al Toufailia H, Butterfield TM, Schrell F, Ratnieks FLW, Schürch R. Caffeinated forage tricks honeybees into increasing foraging and recruitment behaviors. Curr Biol 2015; 25:2815-2818. [PMID: 26480843 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2015] [Revised: 08/19/2015] [Accepted: 08/24/2015] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
In pollination, plants provide food reward to pollinators who in turn enhance plant reproduction by transferring pollen, making the relationship largely cooperative; however, because the interests of plants and pollinators do not always align, there exists the potential for conflict, where it may benefit both to cheat the other [1, 2]. Plants may even resort to chemistry: caffeine, a naturally occurring, bitter-tasting, pharmacologically active secondary compound whose main purpose is to detract herbivores, is also found in lower concentrations in the nectar of some plants, even though nectar, unlike leaves, is made to be consumed by pollinators. [corrected]. A recent laboratory study showed that caffeine may lead to efficient and effective foraging by aiding honeybee memory of a learned olfactory association [4], suggesting that caffeine may enhance bee reward perception. However, without field data, the wider ecological significance of caffeinated nectar remains difficult to interpret. Here we demonstrate in the field that caffeine generates significant individual- and colony-level effects in free-flying worker honeybees. Compared to a control, a sucrose solution with field-realistic doses of caffeine caused honeybees to significantly increase their foraging frequency, waggle dancing probability and frequency, and persistency and specificity to the forage location, resulting in a quadrupling of colony-level recruitment. An agent-based model also demonstrates how caffeine-enhanced foraging may reduce honey storage. Overall, caffeine causes bees to overestimate forage quality, tempting the colony into sub-optimal foraging strategies, which makes the relationship between pollinator and plant less mutualistic and more exploitative. VIDEO ABSTRACT.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret J Couvillon
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK.
| | - Hasan Al Toufailia
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
| | | | - Felix Schrell
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
| | - Francis L W Ratnieks
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
| | - Roger Schürch
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI), School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK; Clinical Trials Unit (CTU), University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
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22
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Mendoza-Vargas L, Ortega P, Fuentes-Pardo B, Viccon-Pale JA. Circadian rhythm in locomotor activity in the burrower crayfishProcambarus acanthophorus(Villalobos 1948). BIOL RHYTHM RES 2015. [DOI: 10.1080/09291016.2015.1084156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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Ratnieks FLW, Shackleton K. Does the waggle dance help honey bees to forage at greater distances than expected for their body size? Front Ecol Evol 2015. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Schürch R, Ratnieks FLW. The spatial information content of the honey bee waggle dance. Front Hum Neurosci 2015. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Beekman M, Makinson JC, Couvillon MJ, Preece K, Schaerf TM. Honeybee linguistics—a comparative analysis of the waggle dance among species of Apis. Front Ecol Evol 2015. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Garbuzov M, Schürch R, Ratnieks FL. Eating locally: dance decoding demonstrates that urban honey bees in Brighton, UK, forage mainly in the surrounding urban area. Urban Ecosyst 2014. [DOI: 10.1007/s11252-014-0403-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Couvillon MJ, Schürch R, Ratnieks FLW. Dancing bees communicate a foraging preference for rural lands in high-level agri-environment schemes. Curr Biol 2014; 24:1212-5. [PMID: 24856213 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.072] [Citation(s) in RCA: 71] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2014] [Revised: 03/27/2014] [Accepted: 03/28/2014] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Since 1994, more than €41 billion has been spent in the European Union on agri-environment schemes (AESs), which aim to mitigate the effects of anthropomorphic landscape changes via financial incentives for land managers to encourage environmentally friendly practices [1-6]. Surprisingly, given the substantial price tag and mandatory EU member participation [2], there is either a lack of [1] or mixed [1, 2, 7] evidence-based support for the schemes. One novel source of data to evaluate AESs may be provided by an organism that itself may benefit from them. Honeybees (Apis mellifera), important pollinators for crops and wildflowers [8, 9], are declining in parts of the world from many factors, including loss of available forage from agricultural intensification [10-13]. We analyzed landscape-level honeybee foraging ecology patterns over two years by decoding 5,484 waggle dances from bees located in the center of a mixed, urban-rural 94 km(2) area, including lands under government-funded AESs. The waggle dance, a unique behavior performed by successful foragers, communicates to nestmates the most profitable foraging locations [14-16]. After correcting for distance, dances demonstrate that honeybees possess a significant preference for rural land managed under UK Higher Level AESs and a significant preference against rural land under UK Organic Entry Level AESs. Additionally, the two most visited areas contained a National and Local Nature Reserve, respectively. Our study demonstrates that honeybees, with their great foraging range and sensitive response to forage quality, can be used as bioindicators to monitor large areas and provide information relevant to better environmental management.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret J Couvillon
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK.
| | - Roger Schürch
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK; Evolution, Behaviour, and Environment, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
| | - Francis L W Ratnieks
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
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Couvillon MJ, Fensome KA, Quah SK, Schürch R. Summertime blues: August foraging leaves honey bees empty-handed. Commun Integr Biol 2014; 7:e28821. [PMID: 25346794 PMCID: PMC4203501 DOI: 10.4161/cib.28821] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2014] [Accepted: 04/08/2014] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
A successful honey bee forager tells her nestmates the location of good nectar and pollen with the waggle dance, a symbolic language that communicates a distance and direction. Because bees are adept at scouting out profitable forage and are very sensitive to energetic reward, we can use the distance that bees communicate via waggle dances as a proxy for forage availability, where the further the bees fly, the less forage can be found locally. Previously we demonstrated that bees fly furthest in the summer compared with spring or autumn to bring back forage that is not necessarily of better quality. Here we show that August is also the month when significantly more foragers return with empty crops (P = 7.63e-06). This provides additional support that summer may represent a seasonal foraging challenge for honey bees.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret J Couvillon
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI); School of Life Sciences; University of Sussex; Brighton, UK
| | - Katherine A Fensome
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI); School of Life Sciences; University of Sussex; Brighton, UK
| | - Shaun Kl Quah
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI); School of Life Sciences; University of Sussex; Brighton, UK
| | - Roger Schürch
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI); School of Life Sciences; University of Sussex; Brighton, UK
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Couvillon MJ, Schürch R, Ratnieks FLW. Waggle dance distances as integrative indicators of seasonal foraging challenges. PLoS One 2014; 9:e93495. [PMID: 24695678 PMCID: PMC3973573 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093495] [Citation(s) in RCA: 87] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2014] [Accepted: 03/06/2014] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Even as demand for their services increases, honey bees (Apis mellifera) and other pollinating insects continue to decline in Europe and North America. Honey bees face many challenges, including an issue generally affecting wildlife: landscape changes have reduced flower-rich areas. One way to help is therefore to supplement with flowers, but when would this be most beneficial? We use the waggle dance, a unique behaviour in which a successful forager communicates to nestmates the location of visited flowers, to make a 2-year survey of food availability. We “eavesdropped” on 5097 dances to track seasonal changes in foraging, as indicated by the distance to which the bees as economic foragers will recruit, over a representative rural-urban landscape. In year 3, we determined nectar sugar concentration. We found that mean foraging distance/area significantly increase from springs (493 m, 0.8 km2) to summers (2156 m, 15.2 km2), even though nectar is not better quality, before decreasing in autumns (1275 m, 5.1 km2). As bees will not forage at long distances unnecessarily, this suggests summer is the most challenging season, with bees utilizing an area 22 and 6 times greater than spring or autumn. Our study demonstrates that dancing bees as indicators can provide information relevant to helping them, and, in particular, can show the months when additional forage would be most valuable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret J Couvillon
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, United Kingdom
| | - Roger Schürch
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, United Kingdom; Laboratory of Social Evolution, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, United Kingdom
| | - Francis L W Ratnieks
- Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, United Kingdom
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