A Common Frame of Reference for Learned and Communicated Vectors in Honeybee Navigation

Abstract

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.

Pesticide risk assessment in free-ranging bees is weather and landscape dependent

“…Interestingly, the greatest treatment effect was measured during poor weather conditions in environments with a greater density of landmarks (Fig. 2b), suggesting that treated foragers had greater difficulties to recover and integrate the information on vector flights among learned landmarks and/or to derive novel shortcut vector flights 18,19 . This also matches the recent evidence from harmonic radar tracking surveys that honeybees experience difficulties in their homing flight pattern after non-lethal exposure to neonicotinoid pesticides 28 .…”

“…Herein, Navigation Evironmental Correlate, thereafter abbreviated as NECs, refer to those extrinsic drivers of bee navigation and flight performances, comprising weather conditions (temperature, cloudiness or visibility of sun) and salient landmarks acting as visual cues for orientation [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Homing honeybees rely on a network of learned interconnected vectors for orientation 18 , conceptualized as memorized distances and directions among known locations. They further have the ability to derive novel shortcut vectors from the integration of two or more previously learned vector flights 19 .…”

Honeybees consolidate navigation memory during sleep

“…A group of honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica Pollman 1879) was trained to a feeder 200m to the east of the hive on a flat pastureland near Klein Lüben (Brandenburg, Germany) that was free from obstacles which would have obscured the radar's field of view, but included radar-transparent colored tents (for details, see Menzel et al, 2011). A test bee was caught at the feeder while preparing to fly back to the hive after sucking its fill, transported to a release site several hundred meters away from the hive, and equipped with a transponder to track its flight as described previously (Riley et al, 2005).…”

From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: The function of olfaction

“…Studies of cognitive mapping in honey bees by Menzel et al have shown that displaced honeybees can initiate homing flights from any location within the explored area along novel shortcuts and can choose among at least three goals (75,76). Honeybees can also shortcut between vectors learned from exploration and those learned from the waggle dance (77).…”