For 30 years a controversy has raged over whether the honey bee waggle dance communicates the distance, direction, and scent of a food source to other bees, or whether it communicates only the scent. One way or the other the dance functions to recruit other bees to the food source visited by the dancing bee. Both sides of the debate have disputed the interpretation of results presented to date, but more data, rather than more arguing, are required to resolve the controversy. Two experiments are presented that test predictions of the two leading recruitment hypotheses: Karl von Frisch's dance language hypothesis, which suggests the dance is a symbolic language conveying directions to a food source, and Adrian Wenner's odor search hypothesis, which suggests the dance conveys no information other than the scent of a food source. The results indicate that recruits are indeed learning the direction of a food source when they follow dances, as von Frisch asserted 50 years ago.
For 30 years a controversy has raged over whether the honey bee waggle dance communicates the distance, direction, and scent of a food source to other bees, or whether it communicates only the scent. One way or the other the dance functions to recruit other bees to the food source visited by the dancing bee. Both sides of the debate have disputed the interpretation of results presented to date, but more data, rather than more arguing, are required to resolve the controversy. Two experiments are presented that test predictions of the two leading recruitment hypotheses: Karl von Frisch's dance language hypothesis, which suggests the dance is a symbolic language conveying directions to a food source, and Adrian Wenner's odor search hypothesis, which suggests the dance conveys no information other than the scent of a food source. The results indicate that recruits are indeed learning the direction of a food source when they follow dances, as von Frisch asserted 50 years ago.KEY WORDS: honey bee, dance language, odor, recruitment, foraging
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.