Sleeping in a society of honey bees: The tale of a sleep-deprived dancer and her unwitting followers, and the search for insect dreams
Sleeping in a society of honey bees: The tale of a sleep-deprived dancer and her unwitting followers, and the search for insect dreams
ABSTRACT
Foragers of western honey bees (Apis mellifera) famously exhibit waggle dances capable of advertising the destination of a food source to nest mates. When restricted of sleep, a forager dances, but the direction component of her dance is less precise. Signaling is only one half of communication, so what about the receivers of the signals—dance followers confronted with relatively imprecise dance signals? A dancer’s sleep loss specifically, and mysteriously, plays a role in follower behavior.
We will also leap into a honey bee’s brain to consider what it means to process stimuli during sleep… and possibly to dream.
Nature of Life seminars
Date : 15 March 2022
Time : 15.45 hours
Location : Online