How bumblebees coordinate path integration and body orientation at the start of their first learning flight (dataset)

Notes (pdf), data (Matlab)The article associated with this dataset is available in ORE at: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/132859The start of a bumblebee's first learning flight from its nest provides an opportunity to examine the bee's learning behaviour during its initial view of the nest's unfamiliar surroundings. Bumblebees like many other bees, wasps and ants learn views of their nest surroundings while they face their nest. We find that a bumblebee's first fixation of the nest is a coordinated manoeuvre in which the insect faces the nest with its body oriented towards a particular visual feature within its surroundings. This conjunction of nest-fixation and body-orientation is preceded and reached by means of a translational scan during which the bee flies perpendicularly to its preferred body orientation. The significance of the coordinated manoeuvre is apparent during return flights after foraging. Bees then adopt a similar preferred body-orientation when they are close to the nest. How does a bee, unacquainted with its surroundings, know when it is facing its nest? A likely answer is path integration which gives bees continuously updated information about the current direction of their nest. Path integration also enables bees to fixate the nest when the body points in the appropriate direction. The three components of this coordinated manoeuvre are discussed in relation to current understanding of the central complex in the insect brain, noting that nest fixation is egocentric, whereas adopting a preferred body orientation and flight direction within the visual surroundings of the nest are geocentric.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)Leverhulme TrustLeverhulme Trus

Small and large bumblebees invest differently when learning about flowers (dataset)

Frasnelli_etal_2020_data_Fig1.xlxs: Coordinates, body angle and distance to nest of the example trajectory shown in Figure 1 for a bee performing its first learning flight at the flower. Frasnelli_etal_2020_data_Fig2.xlxs: Body orientations of bees (40 degree bins) during their first learning flight. Four groups were tested with either 10%, 20%, 30% or 50% sucrose solution. In the next experiment two groups were tested with 20% and 50%. Body orientations (40 degree bins) are given as well as distances at which bees faced the flower. Frasnelli_etal_2020_data_Fig3_4B.xlsx: Data illustrate the influence of individual body size on flower facing. Given are the number of frames, the number of bouts and the proportion of flower facing. Frasnelli_etal_2020_data_Fig4A.xlsx: Relation between individual body size and the volume bees imbibed of the 20% or 50% sucrose solution.The article associated with this dataset is available in ORE at: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/124274Honeybees [1] and bumblebees [2] perform learning flights on leaving a newly discovered flower. During these flights, bees spend a portion of the time turning back to face the flower when they can memorise views of the flower and its surroundings. In honeybees, learning flights become longer, when the reward offered by a flower is increased [3]. We show here that bumblebees behave in a similar way and we add that bumblebees face an artificial flower more when the concentration of the sucrose solution that the flower provides is higher. The surprising finding is that that a bee’s size determines what a bumblebee regards as a 'low' or a 'high' concentration and so affects its learning behaviour. The larger bees in a sample of foragers only enhance their flower facing when the sucrose concentration is in the upper range of the flowers that are naturally available to bees [4]. In contrast, smaller bees invest the same effort in facing flowers, whether the concentration is high or low, but their effort is less than that of larger bees. The way in which different sized bees distribute their effort when learning about flowers parallels the foraging behaviour of a colony. Large bumblebees [5] are able to carry larger loads and explore further from the nest than smaller ones [6, 7]. Small ones with a smaller flight range and carrying capacity cannot afford to be as selective and so accept a wider range of flowers.Leverhulme Trus

Animal Visibility and and Equality in Liberal Democratic States

Animal welfare legislation does not consistently protect all nonhuman animals against all harms under all circumstances. Through an analysis of current legislative arrangements and the origins of animal protection law, and an examination of popular attitudes towards animal cruelty, this study seeks to comment on the role of visibility in informing the level and type of state-sponsored interest protection an animal receives. It is argued that different types of animals enjoy different levels of visibility and that an animal’s level of visibility influences the extent to which the state is willing to intervene to protect the animal from harm. These findings are significant because the highly politicised nature of the lives of many nonhuman animals raises questions about the appropriateness of an animal welfare legislative regime which is at once biased and which also tends to favour those animals who are most readily visible. It is argued that the practice of regulating animal welfare by use of legislative instruments which are inconsistent is problematic from the perspective of liberal principles because liberalism places a heavy emphasis on the concept of equality. Similarly, the practice of preferential treatment for the most visible is not consistent with democratic values because it removes citizens from the process of establishing agreed-upon standards for animal protection. In conclusion, it is argued that because some animals have been effectively drawn into the liberal democratic political landscape, the principle of equitable treatment should be applied to the manner in which the state regulates animal use. Such an approach would mean that animal use would be regulated according to the same values that are applied to other areas of political society. It would also have the effect of establishing what the community views as the appropriate level of nonhuman animal interest protection, by challenging the existence of a double standard predicated on the principle of low visibility

Listening to learners working with ROBOTS

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