Dear pollination ecologists,
do you know studies or do have have own ideas about the stimulus that triggers the buzzing behaviour in bees? Do you think that tactile stimuli are reasonsible?
Very interesting question - I wondered the other day why bumblebees also buzz in flowers where the pollen would be easily available - like roses or poppies. I suggested that the amount of pollen levels out the energy cost of buzzing. Without knowing if buzzing IS really energy intense. No answer, just adding more questions... sorry for this, Klaus.
Dear Ana,
that would of cause be very nice; however, the question remains: which is the unconditioned stimulus that realises the "buzzing reflex"?
Professor Klaus,
I vote in chemical stimuli by gustatory input.
Please notice that the bumblebee is not in contact with the pollen grains before buzzing. Thus you claim a gustatory cue oo the anthers that is universal to unrelated buzz-pollinated flowers. I vote against it.
Klaus
Claudia,
As you mention, bees also buzz non-poricidal flowers (e.g. some roses). Dobson and Colleagues found bees buzzing on Rosa rugosa; further, the addition of scent compounds (e.g. eugenol) increased bees propensity to buzz flowers in this system.
Article Pollen odor chemicals as modulators of bumble bee foraging o...
In the case study of Rosa rugosa, the bees may have learnt to associate the pollen odour with rewards. My original question aimed at an unconditioned stimulus, to which also naive bees respond.
Very Fair Klaus, sorry for the misunderstanding!
This is a very intriguing question for sure. In terms of tactile stimuli are you referring to anther texture?
I'm also voting for Mitra's opinion. I believe buzz behavior is similar to other bees' behaviors while visiting flowers, i.e. proboscis drawing out, pollen gathering etc. Naive bees practice their innate behavior while visiting flowers, and learn to relate their behavior to the flowers' structures, odors, designs etc. Buzzing behavior may be involved with electrostatic stimuli as well.
I herad a very interesting talk on this topic at the Animal Behavior Society Conference last year. Apparently some chemical cue from the flower triggers the buzzing.
Dear all, some years ago I was observing innate colour preferences of bumblebees at artificial flowers. One bumblebee (individually marked as RED69) once landed in my hair and started buzzing. It did so every day and over some weeks when I run the tests. In my opinion a tactile stimulus rather than a chemical stimulus triggered that buzzing behaviour.
Klaus
Hi,
I'd love to talk with you Dr. Lunau! - If you're in town this year, please come see our talk at Animal Behavior Society this year on the multimodal cues that mediate floral sonication. We've filled out the picture better since last year's talk at ABS and will be publishing the results soon.
Hi Avery,
to be sure, I assume that bees can learn many signals as triggers for buzzing. But which are the cues that trigger buzzing in naive bees? Another observation at star-shaped artificial flowers indicated that some bumblebees walked around the margin of the artificial flowers and only buzzed when hanging upside-down. This observation would fit to many buzz-pollinated flowers of the Solanum type, but obviouly not the Malastomataceae.
Klaus
Indeed, we agree with you that many signals could potentially be learned - the work we will be presenting concerns floral cues used by initially flower-naive bees.
Long overdue, but our paper addressing this subject is finally published: doi: 10.1093_beheco_arx058. Short answer; it's chemical cues from the anthers of flowers (any flowers) that elicit pollen collection behavior, and presence/absence of mechanical pollen cues regulate the switch between scrabbling and sonication, respectively)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316975838_How_a_generalist_bee_achieves_high_efficiency_of_pollen_collection_on_diverse_floral_resources
Article How a generalist bee achieves high efficiency of pollen coll...
Dear Pollen biologists,
We used a different setup and found deviant results: In a triple choice test bumblebees (B. terrestris) chose among real hand-collected Dandelion pollen, single and combined stimuli known from pollen, and a solvent control. We found that visual stimuli are sufficient to trigger full behavioural response to pollen, whereas chemical and tactile stimuli add little if at all.
Best wishes,
Klaus
We're in accordance with respect to pollen chemical cues - we've work coming out that likewise shows that chemical cues of pollen don't release collection behavior. Chemical cues releasing pollen collection behavior appear to be intrinsic to anther tissue (hence use of sterile flowers and anther extracts in the Behavioral Ecology paper).
OK, we are in accordance then: I like to mention that we managed to make bumblebees collected pure and inert glass powder (see attached publication). So my view is: If bees know what is a flower and treat every powdery substance on flowers as pollen, they will probably make no mistakes.
Klaus
Yes, there are some intersting papers about sensing of pollen - with different results:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.2768/abstract
Klaus
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