Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T02:53:58.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Motion discrimination by Bombus impatiens (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Hamida B. Mirwan  and
Peter G. Kevan
Hamida B. Mirwan*
Affiliation:
School of Environmental Sciences and The Canadian Pollination Initiative, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
Peter G. Kevan
Affiliation:
School of Environmental Sciences and The Canadian Pollination Initiative, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
*
1Corresponding author (e-mail: hmirwan@uoguelph.ca).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mobility of flowers in the wind has been proposed to affect the performances of pollinators in landing on flowers, nectar extraction, and pollen dispersal. Our study examined the preferences of worker Bombus impatiens Cresson (Hymenoptera: Apidae) for landing on and feeding from immobile or mobile artificial flower. Mobile flowers moved at varied frequencies (0.1–3.0 Hz) and in different directions, horizontal H (left to right wave) and vertical V (from en-face presentation at the lowest point to horizontal presentation at the zenith). We found that the bees showed no preference for mobile or immobile flowers. In general, we found that landing ability (time spent from the bees entering the testing arena to landing and starting to feed on the artificial flower) decreased as frequency (Hz) or speed of motion (cm/second) increased. Directionality of waving affected performance with the bees being able to forage from horizontally moving flowers better than from vertically moving flowers. Experience played a major role in improving individual performances. We also found that the bees could differentiate between horizontally and vertically waving flowers as well as between frequencies or speeds of motion.

Type
Behaviour & Ecology
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 147 , Issue 5 , October 2015 , pp. 580 - 591
Copyright
© Entomological Society of Canada 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Subject editor: Cory Sheffield

References

Alcorn, K., Whitney, H., and Glover, B. 2012. Floral movement increases pollinator preference for flowers with better grip. Functional Ecology, 26: 941–947.Google Scholar
Chapman, R.F., Simpson, S.J., and Douglas, A.E. 1998. The insects: structure and function, 4th edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chittka, L. 1998. Sensorimotor learning in bumblebees: long-term retention and reversal training. Journal of Experimental Biology, 201: 515–524.Google Scholar
Dyer, A.G. 2007. Windy condition affected colour discrimination in bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombus). Entomologia Generalis, 30: 165–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esch, H.E. and Burns, J.E. 1996. Distance estimation by foraging honeybees. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 199: 155–162.Google Scholar
Etnier, S.A. and Vogel, S. 2000. Reorientation of daffodil (Narcissus: Amaryllidaceae) flowers in wind: drag reduction and torsional flexibility. American Journal of Botany, 87: 29–32.Google Scholar
Faegri, K. and van der Pijl, L. 1966. The principles of pollination ecology. Pergamon Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Farina, W., Varju, D., and Zhou, Y. 1994. The regulation of distance to dummy flowers during hovering flight in the hawk moth Macroglossum stellatarum . Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 174: 239–247.Google Scholar
Giurfa, M. 2004. Conditioning procedure and color discrimination in the honeybee Apis mellifera . Naturwissenschaften, 91: 228–231.Google Scholar
Heinrich, B. 2004. Bumblebee economics (with a new preface). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.Google Scholar
Hurlbert, A.H., Hosoi, S.A., Temeles, E.J., and Ewald, P.W. 1996. Mobility of Impatiens capensis flowers: effect on pollen deposition and hummingbird foraging. Oecologia, 105: 243–246.Google Scholar
Kevan, P.G. 1970. High Arctic insect-flower relations: the inter-relationships of arthropods and flowers at Lake Hazen, Ellesmere Island, N. W. T., Canada. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.Google Scholar
Kevan, P.G. and Menzel, R. 2012. The plight of pollination and the interface of neurobiology, ecology and food security. The Environmentalist, 32: 300–310.Google Scholar
Laverty, T.M. and Plowright, C.R. 1988. Flower handling by bumblebees: a comparison of specialists and generalists. Animal Behaviour, 36: 733–740.Google Scholar
Lehrer, M. and Srinivasan, M.V. 1992. Freely flying bees discriminate between stationary and moving objects: performance. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 171: 457–467.Google Scholar
Lehrer, M., Srinivasan, M.V., Zhang, S.W., and Horridge, G.A. 1988. Motion cues provide the bee’s visual world with a third dimension. Nature, 3322: 356–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michener, C.D. 2000. The bees of the world. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.Google Scholar
Moreno, C., Tu, M., and Daniel, T. 2000. Visual motor feedback in the tracking behavior of hovering Manduca sexta . American Zoology, 40: 1138–1139.Google Scholar
Paulk, A.C., Phillips-Portillo, J., Dacks, A.M., Fellous, J., and Gronenberg, W. 2008. The processing of color, motion, and stimulus timing are anatomically segregated in the bumblebee brain. The Journal of Neuroscience, 28: 6319–6332.Google Scholar
Read, J. and Stokes, A. 2006. Plant biomechanics in an ecological context. American Journal of Botany, 93: 1546–1565.Google Scholar
Roubik, D.W. 1992. Ecology and natural history of tropical bees. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Sprayberry, J.D.H. and Daniel, T.L. 2007. Flower tracking in hawkmoths: behavior and energetics. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 210: 37–45.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, M.V. 2011. Honeybees as a model for the study of visually guided flight, navigation, and biologically inspired robotics. Physiological Reviews, 91: 413–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Srinivasan, M.V. and Lehrer, M. 1984. Temporal acuity of honeybee vision: behavioural studies using moving stimuli. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 155: 297–312.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, M.V., Lehrer, M., Kirchner, W., and Zhang, S.W. 1991. Range perception through apparent image speed in freely flying honeybees. Visual Neuroscience, 6: 519–536.Google Scholar
Stojcev, M., Radtke, N., D’Amaro, D., Dyer, A.G., and Neumeyer, C. 2011. General principles in motion vision: color blindness of object motion depends on pattern velocity in honeybee and goldfish. Visual Neuroscience, 28: 361–370.Google Scholar
Warren, J. and James, P. 2008. Do flowers wave to attract pollinators? A case study with Silene maritima . Journal of Evolution Biology, 21: 1024–1029.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Willmott, A. and Ellington, C. 1997. The mechanics of flight in the hawkmoth Manduca sexta. I. Kinematics of hovering and forward flight. Journal of Experimental Biology, 200: 2705–2722.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. 1933. Critical frequency of flicker as a function of intensity of illumination for the eye of the bee. The Journal of General Physiology, 17: 7–19.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. and Zerrahn-Wolf, G. 1936. Flicker and the reactions of bees to flowers. The Journal of General Physiology, 20: 511–518.Google Scholar
Zhang, S.W., Xiang, W., Zili, L., and Srinivasan, M.V. 1990. Visual tracking of moving targets by freely flying honeybees. Visual Neuroscience, 4: 379–386.Google Scholar
Zhou, Y. 1991. Wechselwirkung zwischen dem visuellen und dem taktilen System beim Verfolgen von Blütenattrappen: Verhalten und Morphologie der Proboszisrezeptoren beimTaubenschwanz Macroglossum stellatarum L. Dissertation. Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.Google Scholar