
@article {91959,
	title = {Distance estimation by Asian honey bees in two visually different landscapes.},
	journal = {J Exp Biol},
	year = {2021},
	month = {2021 Apr 01},
	abstract = {<p>Honey bees estimate distances to food sources using image motion experienced on the flight path and they use this measure to tune the waggle phase duration in their dance communication. Most studies on the dance-related odometer are based on experiments with foragers trained into small tunnels with black and white patterns which allowed quantifiable changes in the optic flow. In this study, we determined the calibration curves of two Asian honey bee species, and , in two different natural environments with clear differences in the vegetation conditions and hence visual contrast. We found that the dense vegetation condition (with higher contrast) elicited a more rapid increase in the waggle phase duration with distance than the sparse vegetation in but not in Our findings suggest that contrast sensitivity of the waggle dance odometer might vary among honey bee species.</p>
},
	issn = {1477-9145},
	doi = {10.1242/jeb.242404},
	author = {George, Ebi Antony and Thulasi, Neethu and Kohl, Patrick L and Suresh, Sachin and Rutschmann, Benjamin and Brockmann, Axel}
}
@article {74446,
	title = {Adaptive evolution of honeybee dance dialects.},
	journal = {Proc Biol Sci},
	volume = {287},
	year = {2020},
	month = {2020 Mar 11},
	pages = {20200190},
	abstract = {<p>Efficient communication is highly important for the evolutionary success of social animals. Honeybees (genus ) are unique in that they communicate the spatial information of resources using a symbolic {\textquoteright}language{\textquoteright}, the waggle dance. Different honeybee species differ in foraging ecology but it remains unknown whether this shaped variation in the dance. We studied distance dialects-interspecific differences in how waggle duration relates to flight distance-and tested the hypothesis that these evolved to maximize communication precision over the bees{\textquoteright} foraging ranges. We performed feeder experiments with , and in India and found that had the steepest dialect, i.e. a rapid increase in waggle duration with increasing feeder distance, had an intermediate, and had the lowest dialect. By decoding dances for natural food sites, we inferred that the foraging range was smallest in , intermediate in and largest in . The inverse correlation between foraging range and dialect was corroborated when comparing six (sub)species across the geographical range of the genus including previously published data. We conclude that dance dialects constitute adaptations resulting from a trade-off between the spatial range and the spatial accuracy of communication.</p>
},
	issn = {1471-2954},
	doi = {10.1098/rspb.2020.0190},
	author = {Kohl, Patrick L and Thulasi, Neethu and Rutschmann, Benjamin and George, Ebi A and Steffan-Dewenter, Ingolf and Brockmann, Axel}
}
