Followers: Effect of sleep deprived bees’ waggle dances on the behaviors of the surrounding follower bees
Mentor 1
Barrett Klein
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
24-4-2015 2:30 PM
End Date
24-4-2015 3:45 PM
Description
Sleep envelops a large amount of organism’s lives, yet is a field that is full of many mysteries. How sleep has developed evolutionarily given the very vulnerable position it puts the organism in, is something of major interest in the scientific world. In the European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) sleep has been shown to influence the precision of a dance that individual bees in the hive use to direct others bees of the hive to a food source. Bees that have not been sleep-deprived were shown to have dances that were more precise and sleep-deprived bees have dances that deviate further from the center of the axis of the dance (Klein et al. 2015). A remaining variable to explore in this beehive environment is the effect that these sleep-deprived bees’ dances have on the communication of the food environment to the bees of the rest of the hive. How does the sleep-deprivation and imprecision of the dances affect the ways in which the bees of the hive react? Do these less precise dances impact the direction the follower bee believes the food source is? Do these follower bees sense the fact that this dancer is sleep deprived? Using videos taken of bees that had been sleep deprived and others with a normal amount of sleep, the behaviors of the “follower” bees were analyzed. Dancing bees were followed along their dancing circuit and the followers of these bees, recorded. These followers were then watched and their behaviors logged. This data was then statistically compared to determine the differences in the followers’ behaviors due to a lack of sleep in the dancing bees. The behavior of this follower, dancer relationship provides a vital method of obtaining resources for the hive. Any ways that this behavior is affected, such as this imprecise dance of sleep-restricted dancers, can have vast effects, leading to a need for there to exist a balancing-out behavior. The behaviors of these dancers to discern imprecise and precise dances could lead to an extremely important energy saving mechanism for the hive, allowing it to prosper.
Followers: Effect of sleep deprived bees’ waggle dances on the behaviors of the surrounding follower bees
Union Wisconsin Room
Sleep envelops a large amount of organism’s lives, yet is a field that is full of many mysteries. How sleep has developed evolutionarily given the very vulnerable position it puts the organism in, is something of major interest in the scientific world. In the European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) sleep has been shown to influence the precision of a dance that individual bees in the hive use to direct others bees of the hive to a food source. Bees that have not been sleep-deprived were shown to have dances that were more precise and sleep-deprived bees have dances that deviate further from the center of the axis of the dance (Klein et al. 2015). A remaining variable to explore in this beehive environment is the effect that these sleep-deprived bees’ dances have on the communication of the food environment to the bees of the rest of the hive. How does the sleep-deprivation and imprecision of the dances affect the ways in which the bees of the hive react? Do these less precise dances impact the direction the follower bee believes the food source is? Do these follower bees sense the fact that this dancer is sleep deprived? Using videos taken of bees that had been sleep deprived and others with a normal amount of sleep, the behaviors of the “follower” bees were analyzed. Dancing bees were followed along their dancing circuit and the followers of these bees, recorded. These followers were then watched and their behaviors logged. This data was then statistically compared to determine the differences in the followers’ behaviors due to a lack of sleep in the dancing bees. The behavior of this follower, dancer relationship provides a vital method of obtaining resources for the hive. Any ways that this behavior is affected, such as this imprecise dance of sleep-restricted dancers, can have vast effects, leading to a need for there to exist a balancing-out behavior. The behaviors of these dancers to discern imprecise and precise dances could lead to an extremely important energy saving mechanism for the hive, allowing it to prosper.
