Humans draw maps when communicating about places or verbally describe routes between locations. Honeybees communicate places by encoding distance and direction in their waggle dances. Controversy exists not only about the structure of spatial memory but also about the efficiency of dance communication. Some of these uncertainties were resolved by studies in which recruits' flights were monitored using harmonic radar. We asked whether the two sources of vector information--the previously learned flight vector to a food source and the communicated vector--are represented in a common frame of spatial reference. We found that recruits redirect their outbound flights and perform novel shortcut flights between the communicated and learned locations in both directions. Guidance by beacons at the respective locations or by the panorama of the horizon was excluded. These findings indicate a spatial reference based on either large-scale vector integration or a common geocentric map-like spatial memory. Both models predict a memory structure that stores the spatial layout in such a way that decisions are made according to estimated distances and directions. The models differ with respect to the role of landmarks and the time of learning of spatial relations.
Relatively simple model organisms such as yeast, fruit-flies and the nematode,
Caenorhabditis elegans
, have proven to be invaluable resources in biological studies. An example is the widespread use of
C. elegans
to investigate the complex process of ageing. An important issue when interpreting results from these studies is the similarity of the observed
C. elegans
mortality pattern in the laboratory to that expected in its natural environment. We found that the longevity of
C. elegans
under more natural conditions is reduced up to 10‐fold compared with standard laboratory culture conditions. Additionally,
C. elegans
mutants that live twice as long as wild-type worms in laboratory conditions typically die sooner than wild-type worms in a natural soil. These results indicate that conclusions regarding extended longevity drawn from standard laboratory assays may not extend to animals in their native environment.
-Honeybees that had been trained to visit two feeders simultaneously were released at five sites located further away from the training area. Harmonic radar tracking was used to record the complete homing flights. The bees performed multiple straight flight components (SFCs) between curved search flights. SFCs reflect vector directions between the two feeding sites and the respective vectors between the feeding sites and the hive. Direct flights back to the hive were also observed. The latter belong to a homing strategy that requires the bee to identify its location relative to the hive. We interpret these two navigation strategies as reflecting the application of a directional component of novel shortcut flights. Taken together, our findings indicate that bees apply several different directional components of vectors which are either experienced directly during flight or derived from long-distance vector integration or mapping.navigation / vector integration / shortcut flights / cognitive map
Honeybees use their visual flow field to measure flight distance. It has been suggested that the experience of serial landmarks encountered on the flight toward a feeding place contributes to distance estimation. Here, we address this question by tracing the flight paths of individual bees with a harmonic radar system. Bees were trained along an array of three landmarks (tents), and the distance between these landmarks was either increased or decreased under two test conditions. We find that absolute distance estimation dominates the search for the feeding place, but serial position effects are also found. In the latter case, bees search only or additionally at locations determined by serial experience of the landmarks.
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