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37 results for “bumblebee foraging”
Effects of wind on honeybee and bumblebee foraging behaviour on multiple plant species
<p>Dataset of results used for two publications. It shows the foraging behaviours of honeybees and bumblebees on multiple plant species in different wind speeds,</p>
Supplementary material for: Interindividual variability in flower pickiness by foraging bumblebees
<h3>ABSTRACT</h3> <p><span lang="EN-GB"> Pollinators navigate complex and heterogeneous “flower markets”, where floral resources vary in quality, availability, and spatial distribution. Bumblebees, as generalist foragers, visit numerous flowers during their foraging bouts, yet the factors influencing their flower choices and the individual differences in foraging behaviour remain poorly understood. Here, we tested how bees adjust their foraging in response to different reward structures. <em>Bombus terrestris</em> workers completed three foraging bouts in two artificial flower environments: one simulating a favourable environment with patches alternating high- and low-quality flowers (40% vs. 20% w/w sucrose solution), and the other a challenging environment with high-quality flowers alongside unrewarded ones (40% w/w sucrose solution vs. plain water). We hypothesised that bees would improve their foraging efficiency in both environments, but more rapidly in the more extreme one, where the greater reward difference creates stronger pressure to learn quickly. In both conditions, bees increased their sucrose intake per unit time over bouts. We also observed consistent differences in flower selectivity among individuals: in the favourable environment, bees that first visited high-quality flowers focused on them and avoided low-quality ones (became “picky”), while bees that first visited low-quality flowers kept visiting both types. Despite these differences, bees across environments and pickiness levels all reached similar sucrose intake rates by the third foraging bout, either by becoming more selective, collecting more sucrose solution, or reducing time spent foraging. These findings highlight the adaptability of bee foraging and suggest that early flower experiences may contribute to lasting individual differences in foraging behaviour.</span></p>
Ten-a-day: bumblebee pollen loads reveal high consistency in foraging breadth among species, sites, and seasons
<p>Pollen and nectar are crucial resources for bees, but vary greatly amongst plant species in their quantity, nutritional quality, and timing of availability. This makes it challenging to identify an appropriate range of plants to meet the nutritional needs of pollinators through the year, though this information is important in the design of pollinator conservation schemes.</p> <p>Using DNA metabarcoding of pollen loads, we record the floral resource use of UK farmland bumblebees at different stages of their colony lifecycle, and compare this with null models of 'expected' resource use based on landscape-scale resource availability (pollen and nectar), to identify foraging priorities and preferences. We use this approach to ask three main questions: i) what is the foraging breadth of individual bumblebees?; ii) do bumblebees utilise a greater or lesser diversity of plant species than expected if they foraged in proportion to resource availability?; iii) which plant species do bumblebees preferentially utilise?</p> <p>Individual bumblebees foraged from a highly consistent number of different plant taxa (mean: 10 ±0.37 SE per bee), regardless of their species, sampling site, or time of year. This high consistency in foraging breadth, despite large changes in the quantity, identity, and diversity of resource availability, implies a strong behavioural tendency towards a fixed range of foraging resources. This effect was most striking in April when foraging diversity was maintained despite very low landscape-level resource diversity.</p> <p>Bumblebees used some plant taxa significantly more than predicted from their landscape-level floral abundance, nectar, or pollen supply, implying certain desirable characteristics beyond the mere quantity of resource. These included <em>Allium</em> spp. and <em>Vicia</em> spp. in April; <em>Trifolium repens</em> and <em>Lotus corniculatus</em> in July; and <em>Cynareae</em> spp. (thistles) and <em>Taraxacum officinale</em> in September.</p> <p>Our results strongly indicate that resource quantity is not the only factor driving bumblebee foraging patterns, and that resource diversity and quality are also important factors. Thus, in addition to providing large quantities of floral resources, we recommend that pollinator conservation schemes also focus on providing a sufficient diversity of preferred floral resources, enabling pollinators to self-select a diverse and nutritious diet.</p>
Economic foraging in a floral marketplace: Asymmetrically dominated decoy effects in bumblebees
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Ten-a-day: bumblebee pollen loads reveal high consistency in foraging breadth among species, sites, and seasons
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Data for: Experimental elevated temperature affects bumblebee foraging and flight speed
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Wild bumblebees use both absolute and relative evaluation when foraging
<p>Foraging theory assumes that animals assess value based on objective payoffs, however, animals often evaluate rewards comparatively, forming expectations based on recent experience. This form of evaluation may be particularly relevant for nectar foragers such as bumblebees, where individuals can visit thousands of flowers daily that vary in nectar quality. While many animals, including bees, demonstrate reference-based evaluation in experimental contexts, it is unclear whether this occurs in the wild. Here we asked how daily experience with wildflower nectar influenced wild bumblebees' reward evaluation.<strong> </strong>We measured the daily nectar concentration of bee-visited wildflowers (<em>Penstemon </em>spp<em>.</em>), before presenting foragers with conspecific flowers filled with a range of artificial nectar concentrations. We recorded bees' acceptance of artificial nectar, probability of subsequent visits to flowers on the same plant, and residence time. While bees had a minimum threshold of nectar acceptability that was unaffected by experience, when there was higher-concentration environmental nectar, they were less likely to accept lower-quality rewards on manipulated plants. Bees also visited more flowers and stayed longer on plants with higher-concentration nectar. This study shows evidence for both absolute and reference-based evaluation in wild bees and points towards differences between bees' behavior in lab- and wild-foraging contexts.</p>
Bumblebees retrieve only the ordinal ranking of foraging options when comparing memories obtained in distinct settings
<p><span>Are animals' preferences determined by absolute memories for options (e.g. reward sizes) or by their remembered ranking (better/worse)? The only studies examining this question suggest humans and starlings utilise memories for both absolute and relative information. We show that bumblebees' learned preferences are based only on memories of ordinal comparisons. A series of experiments showed that after learning to discriminate pairs of different flowers by sucrose concentration, bumblebees preferred flowers (in novel pairings) with 1) higher ranking over equal absolute reward, 2) higher ranking over higher absolute reward, and 3) identical qualitative ranking but different quantitative ranking equally. Bumblebees used absolute information in order to rank different flowers. However, additional experiments revealed that, even when ranking information was absent (i.e. bees learned one flower at a time), memories for absolute information were lost or could no longer be retrieved after at most one hour. Our results illuminate a divergent mechanism for bees (compared to starlings and humans) of learned preferences that may have arisen from different adaptations to their natural environment.</span></p>
Data from: Bumblebees can be exposed to the herbicide glyphosate whilst foraging
<p>Bee declines are attributed to multiple factors, one of which is the use of pesticides. However, there is very little research surround the effects of non-insecticidal pesticides on bees. Herbicides are one of the most applied pesticide groups globally, with glyphosate being one of the most applied pesticides in the world. When herbicides are applied to plants, the plant typically dies a few days later. In the period between herbicide application and plant death it is unknown if bumblebees would choose to forage on the herbicide treated plants, especially if there is uncontaminated healthy forage available. This dataset shows the frequency and duration of bumblebee interactions with glyphosate treated and control plants in a choice test, observing how individual foragers interacted with plants. In a second experiment, data was collected on the availability of nectar and pollen in glyphosate treated plants over a 5-6 day period, to help determine if resources remain available for bees to collect whilst the plant was dying. We observed that bees chose to forage on both glyphosate treated and control plants indiscriminately. We also observed that bees spent significantly less time collecting nectar from each individual flower indicating a potential deterrent effect. We also found that over time, plants had a lower standing crop of nectar after treatment with glyphosate. These results suggest that bees could be exposed to herbicide whilst foraging in the environment.</p>
Thermal flight performance reveals impact of warming on bumblebee foraging potential
<p>The effects of environmental temperature on components of insect flight determine life-history traits, fitness, adaptability, and ultimately, organism ecosystem functional roles. Despite the crucial role of flying insects across landscapes, our understanding of how temperature affects insect flight performance remains limited. Many insect pollinators are considered under threat from climatic warming. Quantifying the relationship between temperature and behavioural performance traits allows us to understand where species are operating in respect to their thermal limits, helping predict responses to projected temperature increases and/or erratic weather events. Using a tethered flight mill, we quantify how flight performance of a widespread bumblebee, <i>Bombus terrestris</i>, varies over a temperature range (12-30<sup>o</sup>C). Given that body mass constrains insect mobility and behaviour, bumblebees represent a useful system to study temperature-mediated size-dependence of flight performance owing to the large intra-colony variation in worker body size they exhibit. Workers struggled to fly over a few hundred metres at the lowest tested temperature of 12<sup>o</sup>C, however flight endurance increased as temperatures rose, peaking around 25<sup>o</sup>C after which it declined. Our findings further revealed variation in flight capacity across the workforce, with larger workers flying further, longer, and faster than their smaller nestmates. Body mass was also positively related with the likelihood of flight, although importantly this relationship became stronger as temperatures cooled, such that at 12<sup>o</sup>C only the largest workers were successful fliers. Our study thus highlights that colony foraging success under variable thermal environments can be dependent on the body mass distribution of constituent workers, and more broadly suggests smaller-bodied insects may benefit disproportionately more from warming than larger-bodied ones in terms of flight performance. By incorporating both flight endurance and likelihood of flight, we calculated a simple metric termed 'temperature-mediated foraging potential' to gain a clearer understanding of how temperature may constrain colony foraging. Of our tested temperatures, 27<sup>o</sup>C supported the highest potential, indicating that for much of the range of this species, higher mean daily temperatures as forecasted under climate warming will push colonies closer to their thermal optimum for flight. Subsequently, warming may have positive implications for bumblebee foraging returns and pollination provision.</p>
Thermal flight performance reveals impact of warming on bumblebee foraging potential
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Urban bumblebees diversify their foraging strategy to maintain nutrient intake
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Wild bumblebees use both absolute and relative evaluation when foraging
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Bumblebees retrieve only the ordinal ranking of foraging options when comparing memories obtained in distinct settings
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Data from: Bumblebees can be exposed to the herbicide glyphosate whilst foraging
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Exposure to elevated temperature during development affects bumblebee foraging behavior
<p><span>Bee foraging behavior provides a pollination service that has both ecological and economic benefits. However, bee population decline could directly affect the efficiency of this interaction. Among the drivers of this decline, global warming has been implicated as an emerging threat but exactly how increasing temperatures affect bee foraging behavior remains unexplored. Here, we assessed how exposure to elevated temperatures during development affects the foraging behavior and morphology of workers from commercial and wild <em>Bombus terrestris</em> colonies. Workers reared at 33°C had a higher visiting rate and shorter visiting time than those reared at 27°C. In addition, far fewer workers reared at 33°C engaged in foraging activities and this is potentially related to the drastic reduction in the number of individuals produced in colonies exposed to 33°C. The impact of elevated developmental temperature on wild colonies was even stronger as none of the workers from these colonies performed any foraging trips. We also found that rearing temperature affected wing size and shape. Our results provide the first evidence that colony temperature can have striking effects on bumblebee foraging behavior. Of particular importance is the drastic reduction in the number of workers performing foraging trips, and the total number of foraging trips made by workers reared in high temperatures. Further studies should explore if, ultimately, these observed effects of exposure to elevated temperature during development lead to a reduction in pollination efficiency.</span></p>
Data from: Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID
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Exposure to elevated temperature during development affects bumblebee foraging behavior
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Data from: Foraging bumblebees acquire a preference for neonicotinoid-treated food with prolonged exposure
Social bees represent an important group of pollinating insects but can be exposed to potentially harmful pesticides when foraging on treated or contaminated flowering plants. To investigate if such exposure is detrimental to bees, many studies have exclusively fed individuals with pesticide spiked food, informing us about the hazard but not necessarily the risk of exposure. Whilst such studies are important to establish the physiological and behavioural effects on individuals they do not consider the possibility that exposure may change over time. For example, many pesticide assays exclude potential behavioural adaptations, such as a rejection of harmful compounds by choosing to feed on an uncontaminated food source, which would behaviourally lower the risk of exposure. Here we conducted an experiment over 10 days in which bumblebees forage on an array of sucrose feeders containing a range of concentrations (0, 2 & 11 parts per billion) of the neonicotinoid pesticide thiamethoxam. We more closely mimic pesticide exposure in the wild by allowing foraging bees to experience i) a range of pesticide concentrations across a chronic exposure period, ii) repeated interactions with the pesticide, and iii) allowing foraging bees to retain the social cues associated with foraging by using whole colonies. We found that the proportion of visits to pesticide-laced feeders increased over time, resulting in the consumption of more pesticide-laced sucrose. After changing the spatial position of each feeder, foragers continued to preferentially visit the pesticide-laced food, indicating that workers can detect thiamethoxam and alter their behaviour to continue feeding from it. The increasing preference for consuming the neonicotinoid treated food, therefore increases the risk of exposure for the colony during prolonged pesticide exposure. Our results highlight the need to incorporate attractiveness of field relevant concentrations of pesticides to foraging bees (and other insect p
Data from: Chronic impairment of bumblebee natural foraging behaviour induced by sublethal pesticide exposure
1. Insect pollination is a vital ecosystem service that maintains biodiversity and sustains agricultural crop yields. Social bees are essential insect pollinators so it is concerning that their populations are in global decline. 2. Although pesticide exposure has been implicated as a possible cause for bee declines, we currently have a limited understanding of the risk these chemicals pose. Whilst environmental exposure to pesticides typically has non-lethal effects on individual bees, recent reports suggest that sublethal exposure can affect important behavioural traits such as foraging. However, at present we know comparatively little about how natural foraging behaviour is impaired and the relative impacts of acute and chronic effects. 3. Using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging technology we examined how the day-to-day foraging patterns of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) were affected when exposed to either a neonicotinoid (imidacloprid) and/or a pyrethroid (λ-cyhalothrin) independently and in combination over a four week period. This is the first study to provide data on the impacts of combined and individual pesticide exposure on the temporal dynamics of foraging behaviour in the field over a prolonged period of time. 4. Our results show that neonicotinoid exposure has both acute and chronic effects on overall foraging activity. While foragers from control colonies improved their pollen foraging performance as they gained experience, the performance of bees exposed to imidacloprid became worse: chronic behavioural impairment. We also found evidence suggesting that pesticide exposure can change forager preferences for the flower types from which they collect pollen. 5. Our findings highlight the importance of considering prolonged exposure (which happens in the field) when assessing the risk that pesticides pose to bees. The effects of chronic pesticide exposure could have serious detrimental consequences for both colony survival and also the pollination services provided by these essential insect pollinators.
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
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DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
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International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.