Multimodal cues provide redundant information for bumblebees when the stimulus is visually salient, but facilitate red target detection in a naturalistic background.

ABSTRACT: Our understanding of how floral visitors integrate visual and olfactory cues when seeking food, and how background complexity affects flower detection is limited. Here, we aimed to understand the use of visual and olfactory information for bumblebees (Bombus terrestris terrestris L.) when seeking flowers in a visually complex background. To explore this issue, we first evaluated the effect of flower colour (red and blue), size (8, 16 and 32 mm), scent (presence or absence) and the amount of training on the foraging strategy of bumblebees (accuracy, search time and flight behaviour), considering the visual complexity of our background, to later explore whether experienced bumblebees, previously trained in the presence of scent, can recall and make use of odour information when foraging in t

SUBMITTER: Telles FJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5595325 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature