Influence of scent deposits on flower choice: experiments in an artificial flower array with bumblebees

Witjes, Sebastian; Eltz, Thomas

doi:10.1051/apido:2006048

Cited by 29 publications

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“…On the other hand, some studies report the contrary (e.g. Witjes and Eltz, 2007). Finally, other studies showed that bees react to scent marks as a function of their previous experience (Leadbeater and Chittka, 2009;.…”

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“…There was also no clear indication that the bees learned to choose the flower without contamination over the duration of the study period, indicating that the avoidance of the contaminated flower is an innate response. Finally, bees more often switched to the rewarding flower after landing on the nonrewarding, contaminated flower (Fig.2D), emphasising the repellent effect of contamination for the bees.Scent marks and their significance have been well studied (Goulson et al, 1998;Goulson et al, 2000;Goulson et al, 2001;Leadbeater and Chittka, 2009;Leadbeater and Chittka, 2011;Saleh et al, 2007;Witjes and Eltz, 2007;Witjes and Eltz, 2009). On the one hand, some studies have shown that scent marks act as repellents for experienced bees, allowing them to choose rewarding flowers more efficiently, as previous visitors might have reduced the available nectar (Goulson et al, 1998;Goulson et al, 2001).…”

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Social scent marks do not improve avoidance of parasites in foraging bumblebees

Fouks

Lattorff

2012

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYForaging is a result of innate and acquired mechanisms, and is optimized in order to increase fitness. During foraging, an animal faces many threats, such as predation and infection. The uptake of parasites and diseases while foraging is common and an individual should be adapted to detect and avoid such threats, using cues from either the abiotic environment or the parasite. Social animals possess an additional cue to detect such contaminated food sources: information provided by conspecifics. Bumblebees avoid contaminated flowers, but the cues used by the bees to distinguish contamination remain unknown. Under controlled laboratory conditions, we tested the use of scent marks derived from other foragers in choosing between a contaminated (by Crithidia bombi) and an uncontaminated flower. As a positive control we tested the beeʼs choice between two flowers, one scented with geraniol and containing a highly rewarding sugar solution, and the other not scented and containing a poorer reward. The bees mainly chose the uncontaminated and the rewarding scented flowers. Scent marks did not increase the efficiency of the bumblebees in choosing the better flower. The bees from both experiments behaved similarly, showing that the main and most relevant cue used to choose the uncontaminated flower is the odour from the parasite itself. The adaptation of bumblebees to avoid flowers contaminated by C. bombi arose from the long-term host-parasite interaction between these species. This strong adaptation results in an innate behaviour of bees and a detection and aversion of the odour of contaminated flower nectar.Supplementary material available online at http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/216/2/285/DC1 Key words: Bombus terrestris, Crithidia bombi, host-parasite interaction, social cue, social immunity, social learning. THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY 286 levels of social immunity, from the uptake of the parasite to its transmission to the next generation (Cremer et al., 2007). Social immunity may occur in the presence of a parasite (activated response) but also in the absence of parasites (prophylactic response) (Cremer et al., 2007;Richter et al., 2012).Bumblebees are parasitized by Crithidia bombi (Lipa and Triggiani, 1988) (Trypanosomatida), a well-adapted gut parasite of bumblebees (Schmid-Hempel, 2001). This parasite decreases drastically the chance for a future queen to found a new colony, and also the size and the efficiency of new colonies (Brown et al., 2003). According to the Red Queen hypothesis (Bell, 1982; Decaestecker et al., 2007), this long-term relationship leads to an arms race. Recently, Fouks and Lattorff (Fouks and Lattorff, 2011) discovered an avoidance behaviour in foraging bumblebees of flowers contaminated either by a specific parasite (C. bombi) or by a common microorganism (Escherichia coli: Bacteria).The combination of activated social immunity during foraging behaviour exhibited in bumblebees is of importance as parasites might be taken up on shared food patches (Durrer and ...

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Social scent marks do not improve avoidance of parasites in foraging bumblebees

Fouks

Lattorff

2012

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…In laboratory experiments scent marks were found to be either repellent (Witjes and Eltz 2007) or attractive (Cameron 1981;Schmitt and Bertsch 1990), depending on whether the reward in feeders could be depleted during a single visit or not. These behavioural differences could certainly be because of flower marking with chemically different 'attractant' or 'repellent' pheromones.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These behavioural differences could certainly be because of flower marking with chemically different 'attractant' or 'repellent' pheromones. However, a much more parsimonious explanation is that the same chemical cue (footprint) can adopt opposite meanings for foragers because of negative or positive conditioning (Saleh and Chittka 2006;Witjes and Eltz 2007). Chemical cues inherent to footprints are used in variable contexts by other Hymenoptera.…”

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Foraging scent marks of bumblebees: footprint cues rather than pheromone signals

Wilms

Eltz

2007

Naturwissenschaften

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In their natural habitat foraging bumblebees refuse to land on and probe flowers that have been recently visited (and depleted) by themselves, conspecifics or other bees, which increases their overall rate of nectar intake. This avoidance is often based on recognition of scent marks deposited by previous visitors. While the term 'scent mark' implies active labelling, it is an open question whether the repellent chemicals are pheromones actively and specifically released during flower visits, or mere footprints deposited unspecifically wherever bees walk. To distinguish between the two possibilities, we presented worker bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) with three types of feeders in a laboratory experiment: unvisited control feeders, passive feeders with a corolla that the bee had walked over on its way from the nest (with unspecific footprints), and active feeders, which the bee had just visited and depleted, but which were immediately refilled with sugar-water (potentially with specific scent marks). Bumblebees rejected both active and passive feeders more frequently than unvisited controls. The rate of rejection of passive feeders was only slightly lower than that of active feeders, and this difference vanished completely when passive corollas were walked over repeatedly on the way from the nest. Thus, mere footprints were sufficient to emulate the repellent effect of an actual feeder visit. In confirmation, glass slides on which bumblebees had walked on near the nest entrance accumulated hydrocarbons (alkanes and alkenes, C23 to C31), which had previously been shown to elicit repellency in flower choice experiments. We conclude that repellent scent marks are mere footprints, which foraging bees avoid when they encounter them in a foraging context.

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“…The repellent effects decrease with the replenishment of nectar volume, and the duration of the effect differs among flower species (Stout and Goulson, 2001). Regarding the different roles of scent marks, several studies have shown that different responses to the scent marks could result from different interpretation of the same chemicals according to the abundance of resources and the context in which they are presented (Saleh and Chittka, 2006;Witjes and Eltz, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

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Repellent scent-marking behaviour of the sweat beeHalictus(Seladonia)aerariusduring flower foraging

Yokoi

Fujisaki

2007

Apidologie

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-Several social bee species of the family Apidae use scent marks on flowers left by previous visitors to improve foraging efficiency, but scent marking has not been demonstrated in other social bees. Experiments were conducted to confirm the ability of the eusocial sweat bee Halictus (Seladonia) aerarius (Hymenoptera: Halictidae) to use scent marks to detect flowers within 3 min of foraging by the same individuals or by conspecifics. Rejection responses were evident on two plant species, Erigeron annuus and Justicia procumbens. The proportion of hovering rejection responses to visited flowers differed among plant species. Repellent responses to visited flowers of J. procumbens decreased without replenishment of nectar. We suggest that the duration of scent marks used by H. aerarius is not adjusted to nectar replenishment and that this bee uses different rejection responses depending on the resources expected when revisiting flowers. This strategy may be considered a basal trait in the bee's evolution. social bee / Halictidae / foraging behaviour / repellent effect / scent marks / floral resources

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Influence of scent deposits on flower choice: experiments in an artificial flower array with bumblebees

Cited by 29 publications

References 29 publications

Social scent marks do not improve avoidance of parasites in foraging bumblebees

Social scent marks do not improve avoidance of parasites in foraging bumblebees

Foraging scent marks of bumblebees: footprint cues rather than pheromone signals

Repellent scent-marking behaviour of the sweat beeHalictus(Seladonia)aerariusduring flower foraging

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