| 1. |
- Cresswell, James E., et al.
(författare)
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Differential sensitivity of honey bees and bumble bees to a dietary insecticide(imidacloprid)
- 2012
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Ingår i: Zoology (Jena). - : Elsevier. - 0944-2006 .- 1873-2720. ; 115, s. 365-371
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Currently, there is concern about declining bee populations and the sustainability of pollination services.One potential threat to bees is the unintended impact of systemic insecticides, which are ingested bybees in the nectar and pollen from flowers of treated crops. To establish whether imidacloprid, a systemicneonicotinoid and insect neurotoxin, harms individual bees when ingested at environmentally realisticlevels, we exposed adult worker bumble bees, Bombus terrestris L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), and honeybees, Apis mellifera L. (Hymenoptera: Apidae), to dietary imidacloprid in feeder syrup at dosages between0.08 and 125 g l−1. Honey bees showed no response to dietary imidacloprid on any variable that wemeasured (feeding, locomotion and longevity). In contrast, bumble bees progressively developed overtime a dose-dependent reduction in feeding rate with declines of 10–30% in the environmentally relevantrange of up to 10 g l−1, but neither their locomotory activity nor longevity varied with diet. To explaintheir differential sensitivity, we speculate that honey bees are better pre-adapted than bumble bees tofeed on nectars containing synthetic alkaloids, such as imidacloprid, by virtue of their ancestral adaptationto tropical nectars in which natural alkaloids are prevalent. We emphasise that our study does not suggestthat honey bee colonies are invulnerable to dietary imidacloprid under field conditions, but our findingsdo raise new concern about the impact of agricultural neonicotinoids on wild bumble bee populations.
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| 2. |
- Linander, Nellie, et al.
(författare)
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The role of spatial texture in visual control of bumblebee learning flights
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0340-7594. ; 204:8, s. 737-745
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When leaving the nest for the first time, bees and wasps perform elaborate learning flights, during which the location of the nest is memorised. These flights are characterised by a succession of arcs or loops of increasing radius centred around the nest, with an incremental increase in ground speed, which requires precise control of the flight manoeuvres by the insect. Here, we investigated the role of optic flow cues in the control of learning flights by manipulating spatial texture in the ventral and panoramic visual field. We measured height, lateral displacement relative to the nest and ground speed during learning flights in bumblebees when ventral and panoramic optic flow cues were present or minimised, or features of the ground texture varied in size. Our observations show that ventral optic flow cues were required for the smooth execution of learning flights. We also found that bumblebees adjusted their flight height in response to variations of the visual texture on the ground. However, the presence or absence of panoramic optic flow did not have a substantial effect on flight performance. Our findings suggest that bumblebees mainly rely on optic flow information from the ventral visual field to control their learning flights.
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| 3. |
- Yilmaz, Ayse, et al.
(författare)
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High diversity of arthropod colour vision : from genes to ecology
- 2022
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Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 377:1862
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Colour vision allows animals to use the information contained in the spectrum of light to control important behavioural decisions such as selection of habitats, food or mates. Among arthropods, the largest animal phylum, we find completely colour-blind species as well as species with up to 40 different opsin genes or more than 10 spectral types of photoreceptors, we find a large diversity of optical methods shaping spectral sensitivity, we find eyes with different colour vision systems looking into the dorsal and ventral hemisphere, and species in which males and females see the world in different colours. The behavioural use of colour vision shows an equally astonishing diversity. Only the neural mechanisms underlying this sensory ability seems surprisingly conserved - not only within the phylum, but even between arthropods and the other well-studied phylum, chordates. The papers in this special issue allow a glimpse into the colourful world of arthropod colour vision, and besides giving an overview this introduction highlights how much more research is needed to fill in the many missing pieces of this large puzzle. This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding colour vision: molecular, physiological, neuronal and behavioural studies in arthropods'.
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