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Neuroethology of the Waggle Dance: How Followers Interact with the Waggle Dancer and Detect Spatial Information. INSECTS 2019; 10:insects10100336. [PMID: 31614450 PMCID: PMC6835826 DOI: 10.3390/insects10100336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2019] [Revised: 09/29/2019] [Accepted: 10/06/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Since the honeybee possesses eusociality, advanced learning, memory ability, and information sharing through the use of various pheromones and sophisticated symbol communication (i.e., the "waggle dance"), this remarkable social animal has been one of the model symbolic animals for biological studies, animal ecology, ethology, and neuroethology. Karl von Frisch discovered the meanings of the waggle dance and called the communication a "dance language." Subsequent to this discovery, it has been extensively studied how effectively recruits translate the code in the dance to reach the advertised destination and how the waggle dance information conflicts with the information based on their own foraging experience. The dance followers, mostly foragers, detect and interact with the waggle dancer, and are finally recruited to the food source. In this review, we summarize the current state of knowledge on the neural processing underlying this fascinating behavior.
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Okada R, Ikeno H, Kimura T, Ohashi M, Aonuma H, Ito E. Error in the honeybee waggle dance improves foraging flexibility. Sci Rep 2014; 4:4175. [PMID: 24569525 PMCID: PMC3935192 DOI: 10.1038/srep04175] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/02/2013] [Accepted: 02/06/2014] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
The honeybee waggle dance communicates the location of profitable food sources, usually with a certain degree of error in the directional information ranging from 10–15° at the lower margin. We simulated one-day colonial foraging to address the biological significance of information error in the waggle dance. When the error was 30° or larger, the waggle dance was not beneficial. If the error was 15°, the waggle dance was beneficial when the food sources were scarce. When the error was 10° or smaller, the waggle dance was beneficial under all the conditions tested. Our simulation also showed that precise information (0–5° error) yielded great success in finding feeders, but also caused failures at finding new feeders, i.e., a high-risk high-return strategy. The observation that actual bees perform the waggle dance with an error of 10–15° might reflect, at least in part, the maintenance of a successful yet risky foraging trade-off.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ryuichi Okada
- Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, 1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
| | - Hidetoshi Ikeno
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Toshifumi Kimura
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Mizue Ohashi
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Hitoshi Aonuma
- Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 12, Nishi 7, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0812, Japan
| | - Etsuro Ito
- Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, 1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
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Okada R, Ikeno H, Kimura T, Ohashi M, Aonuma H, Ito E. Mathematical analysis of the honeybee waggle dance. ACTA BIOLOGICA HUNGARICA 2012; 63 Suppl 2:75-9. [PMID: 22776476 DOI: 10.1556/abiol.63.2012.suppl.2.8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
A honeybee informs her nestmates of the location of a flower by doing a waggle dance. The waggle dance encodes both the direction of and distance to the flower from the hive. To reveal how the waggle dance benefits the colony, we created a Markov model of bee foraging behavior and performed simulation experiments by incorporating the biological parameters that we obtained from our own observations of real bees as well as from the literature. When two feeders were each placed 400 m away from the hive in different directions, a virtual colony in which honeybees danced and correctly transferred information (a normal, real bee colony) made significantly greater numbers of successful visits to the feeders compared to a colony with inaccurate information transfer. Howerer, when five feeders were each located 400 m from the hive, the inaccurate information transfer colony performed better than the normal colony. These results suggest that dancing's ability to communicate accurate information depends on the number of feeders. Furthermore, because non-dancing colonies always made significantly fewer visits than those two colonies, we concluded that dancing behavior is beneficial for hives' ability to visit food sources.
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Affiliation(s)
- R Okada
- Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan.
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Okada R, Akamatsu T, Iwata K, Ikeno H, Kimura T, Ohashi M, Aonuma H, Ito E. Waggle dance effect: dancing in autumn reduces the mass loss of a honeybee colony. J Exp Biol 2012; 215:1633-41. [PMID: 22539730 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.068650] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
SUMMARY
A honeybee informs her nestmates about the location of a profitable food source that she has visited by means of a waggle dance: a round dance and a figure-of-eight dance for a short- and long-distance food source, respectively. Consequently, the colony achieves an effective collection of food. However, it is still not fully understood how much effect the dance behavior has on the food collection, because most of the relevant experiments have been performed only in limited locations under limited experimental conditions. Here, we examined the efficacy of the waggle dances by physically preventing bees from dancing and then analyzing the changes in daily mass of the hive as an index of daily food collection. To eliminate place- and year-specific effects, the experiments were performed under fully natural conditions in three different cities in Japan from mid September to early October in three different years. Because the experiments were performed in autumn, all six of the tested colonies lost mass on most of the experimental days. When the dance was prevented, the daily reduction in mass change was greater than when the dance was allowed, i.e. the dance inhibited the reduction of the hive mass. This indicates that dance is effective for food collection. Furthermore, clear inhibition was observed on the first two days of the experiments; after that, inhibition was no longer evident. This result suggests that the bee colony adapted to the new environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ryuichi Okada
- Laboratory of Functional Biology, Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, 1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
| | - Tadaaki Akamatsu
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Kanako Iwata
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Hidetoshi Ikeno
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Toshifumi Kimura
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Mizue Ohashi
- School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Hitoshi Aonuma
- Laboratory of Neurocybernetics, Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 12, Nishi 7, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0812, Japan
| | - Etsuro Ito
- Laboratory of Functional Biology, Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, 1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
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Okada R, Ikeno H, Aonuma H, Ito E. Biological Insights Into Robotics: Honeybee Foraging Behavior by a Waggle Dance. Adv Robot 2012. [DOI: 10.1163/156855308x368967] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ryuichi Okada
- a Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
| | - Hidetoshi Ikeno
- b School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan
| | - Hitoshi Aonuma
- c Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan
| | - Etsuro Ito
- d Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
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