Abstract
Flowers and bees work together, usually exchanging nutritious nectar for pollination. Bee-flower interactions rely on senses such vision, olfaction, humidity sensing and touch. Recently, we have discovered that bees can also detect and learn about the weak electric field that arises between themselves and flowers.
I will show how this electric field is generated between positively charged bees and negatively charged flowers, and how it contributes to flower-insect interactions and aerial electroreception.
I will also present evidence for the putative sensory neural mechanisms by which bees detect electric fields. Looking beyond bees, it will be suggested that aerial electroreception may be more widespread than previously thought, and be prevalent across terrestrial invertebrates.
Biography
Daniel Robert is a sensory biologist interested in the biomechanics, neurobiology and sensory and physical ecology of miniature sensory systems. His interests include the development and use of analytical methods for investigating the nanoscale mechanics of biological systems. Robert’s research involves interdisciplinary collaborations with sensory biologists, physiologists, molecular geneticists, engineers, mathematicians and physicists, contributing fundamental knowledge in sensory biophysics and nanoscale biological mechanics. Developing biocompatible techniques in laser Doppler vibrometry, Robert’s research in parasitoid flies revealed that directional hearing is possible using microscale deep subwavelength ears, establishing the third principle of directional hearing and prompting the development of bio-inspired miniature microphones.
Recently, Robert and collaborators reported that bumblebees can detect and learn about the electric fields surrounding flowers. This work opens up the field of animal electroreception in air. Robert has worked at different Universities – in Basel, Zürich, Odense, Berlin and Cornell and is now a professor at the School of Biological Science at the University of Bristol