Radar Tracking and Motion-Sensitive Cameras on Flowers Reveal the Development of Pollinator Multi-Destination Routes over Large Spatial Scales

Lihoreau, Mathieu; Raine, Nigel E.; Reynolds, Anne; Stelzer, Ralph J.; Lim, Koeng Su; Smith, A. D.; Osborne, Juliet L.; Chittka, Lars

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001392

Cited by 136 publications

(259 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…To limit foraging costs, individuals optimize different parameters linked to foraging such as the distance they travel (Bell, 1990; Pyke, 1984). For example, bumblebees are able to adjust their trap lines linking different flowers in few foraging bouts to reduce the duration of the nectar collection (Lihoreau et al., 2012). One limiting key parameter is, however, the maximal distance an individual is able to travel going back home, called homing ability (Van Nieuwstadt & Ruano Iraheta, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity rhythm and action range of workers of the invasive hornet predator of honeybees Vespa velutina, measured by radio frequency identification tags

Poidatz

Monceau

Bonnard

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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In social insects, the activity rhythm of foragers and their action range determinate the activity of the colony. In vespids, which are mostly predators, the foraging range of workers determines their maximum predation pressure round the nest. One of these species, Vespa velutina, a recently invasive species introduced into Europe, exerts a strong predation on honeybees at the hive. Therefore, the definition of its activity rhythm and spatial range of predation is of primary importance. Using radio frequency identification tags (RFID), two experiments were carried out to (a) determine their return ability (called homing) in releasing 318 individuals at different distance from their colony and (b) monitor their foraging activity rhythm and the duration of their flights based on 71 individuals followed 24 hr/24 during 2 months. The homing ability of V. velutina was evaluated to be up to 5,000 m and was not affected by the cardinal orientation of release point. The lag time to return to the nest increased with the distance of release. Most of the flight activity took place between 07:00 a.m. and 08:00 p.m., hornets doing principally short flights of less than an hour. Foraging range was thus estimated ca. 1,000 m around the nest. This study of V. velutina assisted by RFID tags provides for the first time a baseline for its potential foraging distance that increase our knowledge of this species to (a) refine more accurately models for risk assessment and (b) define security perimeter for early detection of predation on invasion front.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity rhythm and action range of workers of the invasive hornet predator of honeybees Vespa velutina, measured by radio frequency identification tags

Poidatz

Monceau

Bonnard

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…The problems associated with human monitoring of flower-naïve bee behaviour, in real time, are compounded here because the occurrence of rare events over long observation periods almost inevitably leads to decreases in vigilance (Warm et al, 2009). Two low-cost technological advances are now available: (1) while video recordings are commonplace (Leonard and Papaj, 2011), motion-sensitive camcorders (Lihoreau et al, 2012;Orbán and Plowright, 2013) have the added advantage of recording a specified length clip only when a specific pattern of movement is detected in the viewfinder. This feature is particularly well suited to this area of investigation because it filters out much of the time during which there is no activity around the stimuli.…”

Section: Automationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

Orbán

Plowright

2014

Insect. Soc.

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Much of the literature on foraging behaviour in bees focuses on what they learn after they have had rewarded experience with flowers. This review focuses on how honeybees and bumblebees are drawn to candidate food sources in the first place: the foundation on which learning is built. Prior to rewarded foraging experience, flower-naïve bumblebees and honeybees rely heavily on visual cues to discover their first flower. This review lists methodological issues that surround the study of flowernaïve behaviour and describes technological advances. The role of distinct visual properties of flowers in attracting bees is considered: colour, floral size, patterning and social cues. The research reviewed is multi-disciplinary and takes the perspectives of both the bees and the plants they visit. Several avenues for future research are proposed.

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“…Such sensors are invasive, active (i.e., they require their own battery) with a non-negligible cost, and they may alter the animal behavior. Radar systems have been used for tracking small animals, such as low flying insects (honey bees [14], bumblebees [15], hornets [16], butterflies [17]), ground walking invertebrates (beetles and snails [18]) and vertebrates (frogs [19]). So far however, this approach has required the use of harmonic radars, which are expensive, difficult to transport, restrained to tracking one or few individuals simultaneously, and have relatively poor time (3 seconds) and spatial (1 meter) resolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Monitoring of Livestock Behavior Using Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave Radars

Henry¹,

Aubert²,

Ricard³

et al. 2018

PIER M

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Abstract-In animal production, behavioral selection is becoming increasingly important to improve the docility of livestock. Several behavioral traits, including motion, are experimentally recorded in order to characterize the reactivity of animals and investigate its genetic determinism. Behavioral analyses are often time consuming because large numbers of animals have to be compared. For this reason, automatization is needed to develop high throughput data recording and efficient phenotyping. Here we introduce a new method to monitor the position and motion of an individual sheep using a 24 GHz frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar in a classical experimental paradigm called the arena test. The measurement method is non-invasive, does not require equipping animals with electronic tags, and offers a depth measurement resolution less than 10 cm. Parasitic echoes (or "clutters") that could alter the sheep backscattered signal are removed by using the singular value decomposition analysis. In order to enhance the clutters mitigation, the direction-of-arrivals of electromagnetic backscattered signals are derived from applying the MUltiple Signals Classification algorithm. We discuss how the proposed automatized monitoring of individual sheep could be applied to a wider range of species and experimental contexts for animal behavior research.

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Radar Tracking and Motion-Sensitive Cameras on Flowers Reveal the Development of Pollinator Multi-Destination Routes over Large Spatial Scales

Abstract: Automated tracking of bumblebees and computer simulations reveal how bees locate a series of flowers and optimize their routes to visit them all.

Cited by 136 publications

References 42 publications

Activity rhythm and action range of workers of the invasive hornet predator of honeybees Vespa velutina, measured by radio frequency identification tags

Activity rhythm and action range of workers of the invasive hornet predator of honeybees Vespa velutina, measured by radio frequency identification tags

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

Automated Monitoring of Livestock Behavior Using Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave Radars

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