Combined effects of waggle dance communication and landscape heterogeneity on nectar and pollen uptake in honey bee colonies.

ABSTRACT: The instructive component of waggle dance communication has been shown to increase resource uptake of Apis mellifera colonies in highly heterogeneous resource environments, but an assessment of its relevance in temperate landscapes with different levels of resource heterogeneity is currently lacking. We hypothesized that the advertisement of resource locations via dance communication would be most relevant in highly heterogeneous landscapes with large spatial variation of floral resources. To test our hypothesis, we placed 24 Apis mellifera colonies with either disrupted or unimpaired instructive component of dance communication in eight Central European agricultural landscapes that differed in heterogeneity and resource availability. We monitored colony weight change and pol

SUBMITTER: Nurnberger F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5466000 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature