From dyads to collectives: a review of honeybee signalling

Hasenjager, Matthew J.; Franks, Victoria R.; Leadbeater, Ellouise

doi:10.1007/s00265-022-03218-1

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 110 publications

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“…Indeed, such flexibility can be a key source of robustness supporting collective behaviour within social insect colonies (I'Anson Price et al., 2019). Additional studies aiming to tease apart the contributions of individual experience and environmental context in shaping how signals are used and combined with other information sources to guide forager decision‐making would be valuable (Grüter & Czaczkes, 2019; Hasenjager, Franks, et al., 2022). For example, in honeybee feeder experiments, how scent is deployed during training can alter how strongly bees rely on dances to locate food (Gould, 1975; Grüter & Farina, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coupled information networks drive honeybee (Apis mellifera) collective foraging

Hasenjager,

Hoppitt,

Cunningham‐Eurich

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Collective behaviour by eusocial insect colonies is typically achieved through multiple communication networks that produce complex behaviour at the group level but often appear to provide redundant or even competing information. A classic example occurs in honeybee (Apis mellifera) colonies, where both the dance communication system and robust scent‐based mechanisms contribute to the allocation of a colony's workforce by regulating the flow of experienced foragers among known food sources. Here we analysed social connectivity patterns during the reactivation of experienced foragers to familiar feeding sites to show that these social information pathways are not simply multiple means to achieve the same end but intersect to play complementary roles in guiding forager behaviour. Using artificial feeding stations, we mimicked a natural scenario in which two forager groups were simultaneously collecting from distinct patches containing different flowering species. We then observed the reactivation of these groups at their familiar feeding sites after interrupting their foraging. Social network analysis revealed that temporarily unemployed individuals interacted more often and for longer with foragers that advertised a familiar versus unfamiliar foraging site. Due to such resource‐based assortative mixing, network‐based diffusion analysis estimated that reactivation events primarily resulted from interactions among bees that had been trained to the same feeding station and less so from different‐feeder interactions. Both scent‐ and dance‐based interactions strongly contributed to reactivation decisions. However, each bout of dance‐following had an especially strong effect on a follower's likelihood of reactivation, particularly when dances indicated locations familiar to followers. Our findings illustrate how honeybee foragers can alter their social connectivity in ways that are likely to enhance collective outcomes by enabling foragers to rapidly access up‐to‐date information about familiar foraging sites. In addition, our results highlight how reliance on multiple communication mechanisms enables social insect workers to utilise flexible information‐use strategies that are robust to variation in the availability of social information.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coupled information networks drive honeybee (Apis mellifera) collective foraging

Hasenjager,

Hoppitt,

Cunningham‐Eurich

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…As a result, dance followers tend to discover better food sources than bees that search for food sources through independent scouting ( 1 ). The link between dance communication and food source profitability in combination with other, less-well studied signals (such as the stop signal, the shaking signal, and the tremble dance) and individual learning capabilities enables colonies to allocate foragers dynamically in an unpredictable foraging landscape ( 1 , 47 – 51 ).…”

Section: Diversity and Common Themes In Communication Behaviorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diverse communication strategies in bees as a window into adaptations to an unpredictable world

Alves

George

Kaur

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Communication is a fundamental feature of animal societies and helps their members to solve the challenges they encounter, from exploiting food sources to fighting enemies or finding a new home. Eusocial bees inhabit a wide range of environments and they have evolved a multitude of communication signals that help them exploit resources in their environment efficiently. We highlight recent advances in our understanding of bee communication strategies and discuss how variation in social biology, such as colony size or nesting habits, and ecological conditions are important drivers of variation in communication strategies. Anthropogenic factors, such as habitat conversion, climate change, or the use of agrochemicals, are changing the world bees inhabit, and it is becoming clear that this affects communication both directly and indirectly, for example by affecting food source availability, social interactions among nestmates, and cognitive functions. Whether and how bees adapt their foraging and communication strategies to these changes represents a new frontier in bee behavioral and conservation research.

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“…Recent studies have shown that transposing navigation information to dance information is not a reflexive behavior, suggesting more complex memory processes ( Chatterjee et al, 2019 ), presumably in the CX and MB, which is incorporated with other signaling systems of the honey bee, such as tremble dance, stop signals, and shaking signals ( Hasenjager et al, 2022a ).…”

Section: Key Interneurons and Related Processing In The Central Compl...mentioning

confidence: 99%

In search of behavioral and brain processes involved in honey bee dance communication

Farina

2023

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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Honey bees represent an iconic model animal for studying the underlying mechanisms affecting advanced sensory and cognitive abilities during communication among colony mates. After von Frisch discovered the functional value of the waggle dance, this complex motor pattern led ethologists and neuroscientists to study its neural mechanism, behavioral significance, and implications for a collective organization. Recent studies have revealed some of the mechanisms involved in this symbolic form of communication by using conventional behavioral and pharmacological assays, neurobiological studies, comprehensive molecular and connectome analyses, and computational models. This review summarizes several critical behavioral and brain processes and mechanisms involved in waggle dance communication. We focus on the role of neuromodulators in the dancer and the recruited follower, the interneurons and their related processing in the first mechano-processing, and the computational navigation centers of insect brains.

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From dyads to collectives: a review of honeybee signalling

Cited by 5 publications

References 110 publications

Coupled information networks drive honeybee (Apis mellifera) collective foraging

Coupled information networks drive honeybee (Apis mellifera) collective foraging

Diverse communication strategies in bees as a window into adaptations to an unpredictable world

In search of behavioral and brain processes involved in honey bee dance communication

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