Mechanisms, functions and ecology of colour vision in the honeybee

Abstract

Research in the honeybee has laid the foundations for our understanding of insect colour vision. The trichromatic colour vision of honeybees shares fundamental properties with primate and human colour perception, such as colour constancy, colour opponency, segregation of colour and brightness coding. Laborious efforts to reconstruct the colour vision pathway in the honeybee have provided detailed descriptions of neural connectivity and the properties of photoreceptors and interneurons in the optic lobes of the bee brain. The modelling of colour perception advanced with the establishment of colour discrimination models that were based on experimental data, the Colour-Opponent Coding and Receptor Noise-Limited models, which are important tools for the quantitative assessment of bee colour vision and colour-guided behaviours. Major insights into the visual ecology of bees have been gained combining behavioural experiments and quantitative modelling, and asking how bee vision has influenced the evolution of flower colours and patterns. Recently research has focussed on the discrimination and categorisation of coloured patterns, colourful scenes and various other groupings of coloured stimuli, highlighting the bees’ behavioural flexibility. The identification of perceptual mechanisms remains of fundamental importance for the interpretation of their learning strategies and performance in diverse experimental tasks.

Visual acuity trade-offs and microhabitat driven adaptation of searching behaviour in psyllids (Hemiptera: Psylloidea: Aphalaridae)

“…prey, flowers or leaves). Insect visual acuity has been determined for species of Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera by taking advantage of conventional learning paradigms that condition insects to respond to specific stimuli associated with a nutritional reward (von Frisch, 1967;Lehrer and Bischof, 1995;Kinoshita et al, 1999;Takeuchi et al, 2006;Dyer et al, 2008;Galizia et al, 2011;de Ibarra et al, 2014). Indeed, the utility of conditioning techniques has meant that these insects have been used as model species to understand insect vision.…”

Differences in spectral selectivity between stages of visually-guided mating approaches in a buprestid beetle

“…Flights toward the mating targets were observed to begin at a distance of up to 1 m, but given the small size of the eyes of these beetles, it is not likely that image formation was possible at this distance (Hempel de Ibarra et al, 2014). Rather, it is more probable that the female target was detected because the insect was encountering strands of light scattered by the cuticle surface (Domingue et al, 2014), creating a high flicker-fusion frequency, which is known to be detectable by insect eyes (Miall, 1978).…”

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature: Functional Materials in Insects

“…Anatomical allomone structures Bees, [486,491] wasps, [486] ants, [486] honeybees, [497] true bugs [473,499,607] Defense spines Lepidopteran caterpillars, [485] pine processionary caterpillars, [485,490] moths [486] Built structures Caterpillars, [608][609][610][611] moth caterpillars, [612] beetles [613][614][615] Projectile dispersal Bombardier beetles [467] Color vision and color manipulation 1D photonic structures Beetles, [289,291] butterflies [289,291] Apposition eyes Ants, [361] dragonflies [361] Bioluminescence Fireflies [616] Color vision Honeybees, [617,618] common bluebottle butterflies [619] Disorder-based color Butterflies, [320,323,324] jeweled beetles, [329][330][331] white beetles [332,333] Photonic crystals Weevils, [290,316,319,321] butterflies [290,316,…”