Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) trade off defensiveness against periodic mass flight activity.

The giant honeybee Apis dorsata (Fabricius, 1793) is an evolutionarily ancient species that builds its nests in the open. The nest consists of a single honeycomb covered with the bee curtain which are several layers of worker bees that remain almost motionless with their heads up and abdomens down on the nest surface, except for the mouth area, the hub between inner- and outer-nest activities. A colony may change this semi-quiescence several times a day, depending on its reproductive state and ambient temperature, to enter the state of mass flight activity (MFA), in which nest organisation is restructured and defense ability is likely to be suppressed (predicted by the mass-flight-suspend-defensiveness hypothesis).

Automatic detection of spatio-temporal signaling patterns in cell collectives.

Increasing experimental evidence points to the physiological importance of space-time correlations in signaling of cell collectives. From wound healing to epithelial homeostasis to morphogenesis, coordinated activation of biomolecules between cells allows the collectives to perform more complex tasks and to better tackle environmental challenges. To capture this information exchange and to advance new theories of emergent phenomena, we created ARCOS, a computational method to detect and quantify collective signaling.

Non-invasive diagnosis of viability in seeds and lichens by infrared thermography under controlled environmental conditions.

Background: Non-invasive procedures for the diagnosis of viability of plant or fungal tissues would be valuable for scientific, industrial and biomonitoring purposes. Previous studies showed that infrared thermography (IRT) enables non-invasive assessment of the viability of individual "orthodox" (i.e.

Evidence for Ventilation through Collective Respiratory Movements in Giant Honeybee (Apis dorsata) Nests.

The Asian giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) build single-comb nests in the open, which makes this species particularly susceptible to environmental strains. Long-term infrared (IR) records documented cool nest regions (CNR) at the bee curtain (nCNR = 207, nnests > 20) distinguished by marked negative gradients (ΔTCNR/d < -3°C / 5 cm) at their margins. CNRs develop and recede within minutes, predominantly at higher ambient temperatures in the early afternoon.

Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) mob wasps away from the nest by directed visual patterns.

The open nesting behaviour of giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) accounts for the evolution of a series of defence strategies to protect the colonies from predation. In particular, the concerted action of shimmering behaviour is known to effectively confuse and repel predators. In shimmering, bees on the nest surface flip their abdomens in a highly coordinated manner to generate Mexican wave-like patterns.

Speeding up social waves. Propagation mechanisms of shimmering in giant honeybees.

Shimmering is a defence behaviour in giant honeybees (Apis dorsata), whereby bees on the nest surface flip their abdomen upwards in a Mexican wave-like process. However, information spreads faster than can be ascribed to bucket bridging, which is the transfer of information from one individual to an adjacent one. We identified a saltatoric process that speeds up shimmering by the generation of daughter waves, which subsequently merge with the parental wave, producing a new wave front.

Intraspecific Aggression in Giant Honey Bees (Apis dorsata).

We investigated intraspecific aggression in experimental nests (expN₁, expN₂) of the giant honey bee Apis dorsata in Chitwan (Nepal), focusing on interactions between surface bees and two other groups of bees approaching the nest: (1) homing "nestmate" foragers landing on the bee curtain remained unmolested by guards; and (2) supposed "non-nestmate" bees, which were identified by their erratic flight patterns in front of the nest, such as hovering or sideways scanning and splaying their legs from their body, and were promptly attacked by the surface bees after landing. These supposed non-nestmate bees only occurred immediately before and after migration swarms, which had arrived in close vicinity (and were most likely scouting for a nesting site). In total, 231 of the "nestmate" foragers (fb) and 102 approaches of such purported "non-nestmate" scouts (sc) were analysed (total observation time expN₁: 5.

Social waves in giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) elicit nest vibrations.

Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) nest in the open and have developed a wide array of strategies for colony defence, including the Mexican wave-like shimmering behaviour. In this collective response, the colony members perform upward flipping of their abdomens in coordinated cascades across the nest surface. The time-space properties of these emergent waves are response patterns which have become of adaptive significance for repelling enemies in the visual domain.

How to join a wave: decision-making processes in shimmering behavior of Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata).

Shimmering is a collective defence behaviour in Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) whereby individual bees flip their abdomen upwards, producing Mexican wave-like patterns on the nest surface. Bucket bridging has been used to explain the spread of information in a chain of members including three testable concepts: first, linearity assumes that individual "agent bees" that participate in the wave will be affected preferentially from the side of wave origin. The directed-trigger hypothesis addresses the coincidence of the individual property of trigger direction with the collective property of wave direction.

Training for Defense? From Stochastic Traits to Synchrony in Giant Honey Bees (Apis dorsata).

In Giant Honey Bees, abdomen flipping happens in a variety of contexts. It can be either synchronous or cascaded, such as in the collective defense traits of shimmering and rearing-up, or it can happen as single-agent behavior. Abdomen flipping is also involved in flickering behavior, which occurs regularly under quiescent colony state displaying singular or collective traits, with stochastic, and (semi-) synchronized properties.

Stereoscopic motion analysis in densely packed clusters: 3D analysis of the shimmering behaviour in Giant honey bees.

Background: The detailed interpretation of mass phenomena such as human escape panic or swarm behaviour in birds, fish and insects requires detailed analysis of the 3D movements of individual participants. Here, we describe the adaptation of a 3D stereoscopic imaging method to measure the positional coordinates of individual agents in densely packed clusters. The method was applied to study behavioural aspects of shimmering in Giant honeybees, a collective defence behaviour that deters predatory wasps by visual cues, whereby individual bees flip their abdomen upwards in a split second, producing Mexican wave-like patterns.

Complex social waves of giant honeybees provoked by a dummy wasp support the special-agent hypothesis.

The social waves in giant honeybees termed as shimmering are more complex than mexican waves. it has been demonstrated1 that shimmering is triggered by special agents at the nest surface. in this paper, we have used a nest that originated by amalgamation of two previously separated nests and stimulated waves by a dummy wasp moved on a miniature cable car.

Noninvasive diagnosis of seed viability using infrared thermography.

Recent advances in the noninvasive analyses of plant metabolism include stress imaging techniques, mainly developed for vegetative tissues. We explored if infrared thermography can be used to predict whether a quiescent seed will germinate or die upon water uptake. Thermal profiles of viable, aged, and dead Pisum sativum seeds were recorded, and image analysis of 22,000 images per individual seed showed that infrared thermography can detect imbibition- and germination-associated biophysical and biochemical changes.

'Special agents' trigger social waves in giant honeybees (Apis dorsata).

Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) nest in the open and have therefore evolved a variety of defence strategies. Against predatory wasps, they produce highly coordinated Mexican wavelike cascades termed 'shimmering', whereby hundreds of bees flip their abdomens upwards. Although it is well known that shimmering commences at distinct spots on the nest surface, it is still unclear how shimmering is generated.

Social waves in giant honeybees repel hornets.

Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) nest in the open and have evolved a plethora of defence behaviors. Against predatory wasps, including hornets, they display highly coordinated Mexican wave-like cascades termed 'shimmering'. Shimmering starts at distinct spots on the nest surface and then spreads across the nest within a split second whereby hundreds of individual bees flip their abdomens upwards.

Infrared imaging technology and biological applications.

Temperature is the most frequently measured physical quantity, second only to time. Infrared (IR) technology has been utilized successfully in astronomy (for a summary,see Hermans-Killam, 2002b) and in industrial and research settings (Gruner, 2002; Madding, 1982, 1989; Wolfe & Zissis, 1993) for decades. However, fairly recent innovations have reduced costs, increased reliability, and resulted in noncontact IR sensors offering mobile, smaller units of measurement (EOI, 2002; Flir, 2000, 2001,2002).

5-Methyl-2-phenyl-2-hexenal in the scent gland secretion of male cave crickets, Troglophilus cavicola and T. neglectus (Ensifera: Rhaphidophoridae).

5-Methyl-2-phenyl-2-hexenal, a distinctly smelling compound, was identified as a constituent of the male scent gland secretion of two species of cave crickets, Troglophilus cavicola and T. neglectus. It is the first proof of a male specific exocrine compound in grasshoppers.