No abstract

Nectar-feeding animals have served as the subjects of many experimental studies and theoretical models of foraging. Their willingness to visit artificial feeders renders many species amenable to controlled experiments using mechanical "flowers" that replenish nectar automatically. However, the structural complexity of such feeders and the lack of a device for tracking the movements of multiple individuals have limited our ability to ask some specific questions related to natural foraging contexts, especially in competitive situations. To overcome such difficulties, we developed an experimental system for producing computer records of multiple foragers harvesting from simple artificial flowers with known rates of nectar secretion, using radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to identify individual animals. By using infrared detectors (LEDs and phototransistors) to activate the RFID readers momentarily when needed, our system prevents the RFID chips from heating up and disturbing the foraging behavior of focal animals. To demonstrate these advantages, we performed a preliminary experiment with a captive colony of bumble bees, Bombus impatiens. In the experiment, two bees were tagged with RFID chips (2.5 x 2.5 mm, manufactured by Hitachi-Maxell, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) and allowed to forage on 16 artificial flowers arranged in a big flight cage. Using the resulting data set, we present details of how the bees increased their travel speed between flowers, while decreasing the average nectar crop per flower, as they gained experience. Our system provides a powerful tool to track the movement patterns, reward history, and long-term foraging performance of individual foragers at large spatial scales.

Environment monitoring is one of the most important application of Robotic Sensor Network (RSN) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Monitoring of various factors is required for different kinds of environments. These networks have a capability of measuring different parameters such as temperature, humidity and air quality. They also process, transmit, analyze and upload the data over the internet for future use and study. It can automate the system be giving commands based on the data measured for any system to get actuated. Monitoring such parameters using sensor networks helps the humans to avoid entering hazardous areas and can help the farmers to measure required parameters on the field from a remote location. A study and comparison of applications of RSN and WSN in different environments is presented in this review paper which can help make the life of such people easy.