Publication Date:
2013-02-23
Description:
Insects use several senses to forage, detecting floral cues such as color, shape, pattern, and volatiles. We report a formerly unappreciated sensory modality in bumblebees (Bombus terrestris), detection of floral electric fields. These fields act as floral cues, which are affected by the visit of naturally charged bees. Like visual cues, floral electric fields exhibit variations in pattern and structure, which can be discriminated by bumblebees. We also show that such electric field information contributes to the complex array of floral cues that together improve a pollinator's memory of floral rewards. Because floral electric fields can change within seconds, this sensory modality may facilitate rapid and dynamic communication between flowers and their pollinators.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Clarke, Dominic -- Whitney, Heather -- Sutton, Gregory -- Robert, Daniel -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2013 Apr 5;340(6128):66-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1230883. Epub 2013 Feb 21.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23429701" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Bees/*physiology
;
*Cues
;
*Electromagnetic Fields
;
Flowers/anatomy & histology/*physiology
;
*Pollination
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
