Information flow and regulation of foraging activity in bumble bees (Bombus spp.)

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The role of UV in crab spider signals: effects on perception by prey and predators

Australian crab spiders Thomisus spectabilis sit on the petals of flowers and ambush prey such as honeybees. White-coloured T. spectabilis reflect in the UV (UV+ spiders) and previous research has shown that their presence, curiously, attracts honeybees to daisies. We applied an UV-absorber (Parsol®) to create UV-absorbing (UV–) spiders that did not reflect any light below 395 nm wavelength. These physical changes of visual signals generated by crab spiders caused honeybees to avoid flowers with UV– spiders on their petals. They also affected the perception of UV– spiders by honeybees and a potential avian predator (blue tits). Compared to UV+ spiders, UV– spiders produced less excitation of the UV-photoreceptors in honeybees and blue tits, which translated into a reduced UV-receptor contrast and a reduced overall colour contrast between UV– spiders and daisy petals. Our results reveal that a clean physical elimination of reflection in the UV range affects perception in predators and prey and ultimately changes the behaviour of prey.7 page(s

Differential regulation of SC1/PRDM4 and PRMT5 mediated protein arginine methylation by the nerve growth factor and the epidermal growth factor in PC12 cells

During neuronal development, the neuroepithelial stem cells (NSCs) initially undergo proliferative divisions, later switching to neurogenic ones whereby one NSC and a post-mitotic neuron are generated. We recently showed that a member of the PRDM family of transcriptional regulators, PRDM4/SC1, recruits a type II protein arginine methyltransferase, PRMT5, to maintain the "stem-like" cellular state of the embryonic mouse cortical NSCs. However, little is known about the regulation of activity of this complex under proliferation- or differentiation-inducing growth conditions. In the present work I investigate the regulation of SC1/PRMT5-mediated methylation activity in PC12 cells treated with EGF or NGF. I present evidence that NGF down-regulates SC1/PRMT5 methyltransferase (MTase) activity and that the reduction in SC1/PRMT5 MTase activity occurs mainly in the nucleus. I suggest that high levels of SC1/PRMT5 activity are associated with the proliferative state of the cells. © 2013 The Author

Linkage Rules for Plant–Pollinator Networks: Trait Complementarity or Exploitation Barriers?

Recent attempts to examine the biological processes responsible for the general characteristics of mutualistic networks focus on two types of explanations: nonmatching biological attributes of species that prevent the occurrence of certain interactions (“forbidden links”), arising from trait complementarity in mutualist networks (as compared to barriers to exploitation in antagonistic ones), and random interactions among individuals that are proportional to their abundances in the observed community (“neutrality hypothesis”). We explored the consequences that simple linkage rules based on the first two hypotheses (complementarity of traits versus barriers to exploitation) had on the topology of plant–pollination networks. Independent of the linkage rules used, the inclusion of a small set of traits (two to four) sufficed to account for the complex topological patterns observed in real-world networks. Optimal performance was achieved by a “mixed model” that combined rules that link plants and pollinators whose trait ranges overlap (“complementarity models”) and rules that link pollinators to flowers whose traits are below a pollinator-specific barrier value (“barrier models”). Deterrence of floral parasites (barrier model) is therefore at least as important as increasing pollination efficiency (complementarity model) in the evolutionary shaping of plant–pollinator networks

Flower Iridescence Increases Object Detection in the Insect Visual System without Compromising Object Identity.

Iridescence is a form of structural coloration, produced by a range of structures, in which hue is dependent on viewing angle [1-4]. One of these structures, the diffraction grating, is found both in animals (for example, beetles [2]) and in plants (on the petals of some animal pollinated flowers [5]). The behavioral impacts of floral iridescence and its potential ecological significance are unknown [6-9]. Animal-pollinated flowers are described as "sensory billboards" [10], with many floral features contributing to a conspicuous display that filters prospective pollinators. Yet floral iridescence is more subtle to the human eye than that of many animal displays because the floral diffraction grating is not perfectly regular [5-9]. This presents a puzzle: if the function of petals is to attract pollinators, then flowers might be expected to optimize iridescence to increase showiness. On the other hand, pollinators memorize floral colors as consistent advertisements of reward quality, and iridescence might corrupt flower color identity. Here we tested the trade-off between flower detectability and recognition, requiring bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) to identify artificial flowers that varied in pigmentation and degree of iridescence. We find that iridescence does increase target detectability but that "perfect" iridescence (produced by an artificial diffraction grating) corrupts target identity and bees make many mistakes. However, "imperfect" floral iridescence does not lead to mistaken target identity, while still benefitting flower detectability. We hypothesize that similar trade-offs might be found in the many naturally "imperfect" iridescence-producing structures found in animal-animal, as well as other plant-animal, interactions.We thank Divykriti Chopra, Matthew Dorling, Lucy Sandbach and James Philpott for assistance with experiments, and Edwige Moyroud for helpful discussions. We thank James Foster for assistance with measurement of flight arena light level measurements. HW is supported by ERC Starting Grant 260920. AR was supported by a BBSRC doctoral training grant studentship. LC is supported by a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and ERC Advanced Grant 339347.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently embargoed pending publication

Harmonic radar tracking reveals that honeybee drones navigate 2 between multiple aerial leks

Male honeybees (drones) are thought to congregate in large numbers in particular “drone congregation areas” to mate. We used harmonic radar to record the flight paths of individual drones and found that drones favored certain locations within the landscape which were stable over two years. Drones often visit multiple potential lekking sites within a single flight and take shared flight paths between them. Flights between such sites are relatively straight and begin as early as the drone's second flight, indicating familiarity with the sites acquired during initial learning flights. Arriving at congregation areas, drones display convoluted, looping flight patterns. We found a correlation between a drone's distance from the center of each area and its acceleration toward the center, a signature of collective behavior leading to congregation in these areas. Our study reveals the behavior of individual drones as they navigate between and within multiple aerial leks

Bumblebees socially learn behaviour too complex to innovate alone.

Culture refers to behaviours that are socially learned and persist within a population over time. Increasing evidence suggests that animal culture can, like human culture, be cumulative: characterized by sequential innovations that build on previous ones1. However, human cumulative culture involves behaviours so complex that they lie beyond the capacity of any individual to independently discover during their lifetime1-3. To our knowledge, no study has so far demonstrated this phenomenon in an invertebrate. Here we show that bumblebees can learn from trained demonstrator bees to open a novel two-step puzzle box to obtain food rewards, even though they fail to do so independently. Experimenters were unable to train demonstrator bees to perform the unrewarded first step without providing a temporary reward linked to this action, which was removed during later stages of training. However, a third of naive observer bees learned to open the two-step box from these demonstrators, without ever being rewarded after the first step. This suggests that social learning might permit the acquisition of behaviours too complex to 're-innovate' through individual learning. Furthermore, naive bees failed to open the box despite extended exposure for up to 24 days. This finding challenges a common opinion in the field: that the capacity to socially learn behaviours that cannot be innovated through individual trial and error is unique to humans