Special reading - feeding behaviour - 1 - honey bee waggle dance Flashcards
what were the hypotheses?
informed dances (with light) and dance language will increase the food collection of the colony i.e. distance and direction are needed
what are the aims of the investigation?
to understand the effects of dancing on high fitness and look into how different quality of dance types have varying effects informed vs uninformed
what kind of treatments were used?
- a diffused light treatment (disorientated dances)
- orientated light treatment
- used two frame horizontal observation hives that could be illuminated with either treatment
what were the methods?
- one colony had diffused light and one had orientated
- then swapped that continually throughout the experiment
- recruits were captured and recorded in 3 trials
- they put feeders at 3 distances from colony
what other aspect of the dances did they test?
- tested wether foragers were less likely to dance when unable to do orientated dances
- anova found no significant effect of light treatment on mean number of bees dancing
how did they measure foraging success?
compared foraging success of colonies by measuring mass of colonies while each foraged under different light treatments
- looked under an 8 month period where they swapped treatments every 11 days
what were the results?
- Orientated colonies averaged greater food collection then when dances were disorientated
- During summer colonies gained mass under both treatments, in Autumn they both lost mass. In winter colonies with orientated dances gained mass vs disorientated dancing colonies losing mass
- ANOVA showed light information had no effect on number of bees dancing
Results demonstrate under natural foraging conditions the communication of distance and direction in dance language can increase the food collection of colonies. Robustly confirms bees use directional information in locating food sources.
