Follower Position Does Not Affect Waggle Dance Information Transfer

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Date
2019-03-03
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Hindawi
Abstract

It is known that the honey bee waggle dance communicates the distance and direction of some item of interest, most commonly a food source, to nestmates. Previous work suggests that, in order to successfully acquire the information contained in a dance, other honey bees must follow the dancer from behind. We revisit this topic using updated methodology, including a greater distance from the hive to the feeder, which produced longer, more easily-read dances. Our results are not congruent with those of earlier work, and we did not conclude that honey bees must follow a dancer from behind in order to obtain the dance information. Rather, it is more likely that a follower can successfully acquire a dance’s information regardless of where she may be located about a dancer.

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Citation
Parry M. Kietzman and P. Kirk Visscher, “Follower Position Does Not Affect Waggle Dance Information Transfer,” Psyche, vol. 2019, Article ID 4939120, 5 pages, 2019. doi:10.1155/2019/4939120