The final moments of landing in bumblebees, Bombus terrestris

Reber, Therese; Baird, Emily; Dacke, Marie

doi:10.1007/s00359-016-1073-4

Cited by 30 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Our results confirm that bumblebees flying in still air follow a pattern of smooth deceleration consistent with that shown for honeybees [ Fig. 2; albeit on a somewhat different spatial scale (Baird et al, 2013), consistent with recent work in bumblebees (Reber et al, 2016)]. …”

Section: Effects Of Wind On Landing Speed and Body Orientationsupporting

confidence: 92%

Wind alters landing dynamics in bumblebees

Chang

Crall

Combes

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Landing is an important but understudied behavior that flying animals must perform constantly. In still air, insects decelerate smoothly prior to landing by employing the relatively simple strategy of maintaining a constant rate of image expansion during their approach. However, it is unclear whether insects employ this strategy when faced with challenging flight environments. Here, we tested the effects of wind on bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) landing on flowers. We find that bees' approach paths to flowers shift from multidirectional in still air to unidirectional in wind, regardless of flower orientation. In addition, bees landing in a 3.5 m s −1 headwind do not decelerate smoothly, but rather maintain a high flight speed until contact, resulting in higher peak decelerations upon impact. These findings suggest that wind has a strong influence on insect landing behavior and performance, with important implications for the design of micro aerial vehicles and the ecomechanics of insect flight.

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Section: Effects Of Wind On Landing Speed and Body Orientationsupporting

confidence: 92%

Wind alters landing dynamics in bumblebees

Chang

Crall

Combes

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…4C), increased rapidly with body size. Bumblebee workers have been found to approach artificial (Reber et al 2016) and natural flowers (Orth and Waddington 1997) from below, which would place the visual target dorsofrontally, a region where we also found that corneal IO angle decreases with eye size (Fig. 7A).…”

Section: Allometry Of B Terrestris Visual Fieldssupporting

confidence: 59%

Bumblebee visual allometry results in locally improved resolution and globally improved sensitivity

Taylor

Tichit

Schmidt

et al. 2018

Preprint

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The quality of visual information that is available to an animal is limited by the size of its eyes. Differences in eye size can be observed even between closely related individuals but we understand little about how this affects visual quality. Insects are good models for exploring the effects of size on visual systems because many species exhibit size polymorphism, which modifies both the size and shape of their eyes. Previous work in this area has been limited, however, due to the challenge of determining the 3D structure of eyes. To address this, we have developed a novel method based on x-ray tomography to measure the 3D structure of insect eyes and calculate their visual capabilities. We investigated visual allometry in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris and found that size affects specific aspects of visual quality including binocular overlap, optical sensitivity across the field of view, and visual resolution in the dorsofrontal visual field. This holistic study on eye allometry reveals that differential scaling between different eye areas provides substantial flexibility for larger bumblebees to have improved visual capabilities. List of abbreviations:az. -Azimuth CC -Crystalline cone el. -Elevation EV -Eye volume FOV -Field of view ITW -Inter-tegula width IO -Inter-ommatidial microCT -micro-computed tomography NV -Normal vector

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“…2C) -in line with the analyses in Taylor et al (2016 & preprint). In B. terrestris this boundary is tilted around 10-18°further forward than the "long axis" of the head which has been used in behavioural studies to examine head position during flight and landing (Reber et al 2016). To our knowledge, there are no published data for the head pitch angle of bumblebees during free flight (i.e.…”

Section: Ocellar Fields Of Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using micro-CT techniques to explore the role of sex and hair in the functional morphology of bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) ocelli

Wilby

Aarts

Tichit

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Many insects have triplets of camera type eyes, called ocelli, whose function remains unclear for most species. Here, we investigate the ocelli of the bumblebee, Bombus terrestris , using reconstructed 3D data from X-ray micro computed-tomography scans combined with computational ray-tracing simulations. This method enables us, not only to predict the visual fields of the ocelli, but to explore for the first time the effect that hair has on them as well as the difference between worker female and male ocelli.We find that bumblebee ocellar fields of view are directed forward and dorsally, incorporating the horizon as well as the sky. There is substantial binocular overlap between the median and lateral ocelli, but no overlap between the two lateral ocelli. Hairs in both workers and males occlude the ocellar field of view, mostly laterally in the worker median ocellus and dorsally in the lateral ocelli. There is little to no sexual dimorphism in the ocellar visual field, suggesting that in B. terrestris they confer no advantage to mating strategies.We compare our results with published observations for the visual fields of compound eyes in the same species as well as with the ocellar vision of other bee and insect species.

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The final moments of landing in bumblebees, Bombus terrestris

Cited by 30 publications

References 22 publications

Wind alters landing dynamics in bumblebees

Wind alters landing dynamics in bumblebees

Bumblebee visual allometry results in locally improved resolution and globally improved sensitivity

Using micro-CT techniques to explore the role of sex and hair in the functional morphology of bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) ocelli

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