Differences in spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity of flight control in the honeybees Apis cerana and Apis mellifera.

Visually guided behaviour is constrained by the capacity of the visual system to resolve detail. This, in turn, is limited by the spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity of the underlying visual system. Because these properties are interdependent and vary non-uniformly, it is only possible to fully understand the limits of a specific visually guided behaviour when they are investigated in combination. To understand the visual limits of flight control in bees, which rely heavily on vision to control flight, and to explore whether they vary between species, we tested how changes in spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity affect the speed and position control of the Asian and European honeybees (Apis cerana and Apis mellifera). Despite the apparent similarity of these species, we found some interesting and surprising differences between their visual limits. While the effect of spatial frequency and contrast on position control is similar between the species, ground speed is differently affected by these variables. A comparison with published data from the bumblebee Bombus terrestris revealed further differences. The visual resolution that limits the detection and use of optic flow for flight control in both species of honeybee is lower than the previously anatomically determined resolution and differs from object detection limits of A. mellifera, providing evidence that the limits of spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity are highly tuned to the particular behavioural task of a species.

High contrast sensitivity for visually guided flight control in bumblebees.

Many insects rely on vision to find food, to return to their nest and to carefully control their flight between these two locations. The amount of information available to support these tasks is, in part, dictated by the spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity of their visual systems. Here, we investigate the absolute limits of these visual properties for visually guided position and speed control in Bombus terrestris. Our results indicate that the limit of spatial vision in the translational motion detection system of B. terrestris lies at 0.21 cycles deg-1 with a peak contrast sensitivity of at least 33. In the perspective of earlier findings, these results indicate that bumblebees have higher contrast sensitivity in the motion detection system underlying position control than in their object discrimination system. This suggests that bumblebees, and most likely also other insects, have different visual thresholds depending on the behavioral context.

Spatial Vision in Bombus terrestris.

Bombus terrestris is one of the most commonly used insect models to investigate visually guided behavior and spatial vision in particular. Two fundamental measures of spatial vision are spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity. In this study, we report the threshold of spatial resolution in B. terrestris and characterize the contrast sensitivity function of the bumblebee visual system for a dual choice discrimination task. We trained bumblebees in a Y-maze experimental set-up to associate a vertical sinusoidal grating with a sucrose reward, and a horizontal grating with absence of a reward. Using a logistic psychometric function, we estimated a resolution threshold of 0.21 cycles deg(-1) of visual angle. This resolution is in the same range but slightly lower than that found in honeybees (Apis mellifera and A. cerana) and another bumblebee species (B. impatiens). We also found that the contrast sensitivity of B. terrestris was 1.57 for the spatial frequency 0.090 cycles deg(-1) and 1.26 for 0.18 cycles deg(-1).

Sex and age related changes in the locomotor activity and phototactic behaviors of two closely related species of Camponotus ants.

A virgin ant queen has only one opportunity in her lifetime to realize her reproductive fitness when she leaves her nest for a mating flight. After successful mating she sheds her wings, excavates a nest and starts laying eggs to initiate her own colony. Here we report the results of our study on two related species of Camponotus ants - day active Camponotus paria and night active Camponotus compressus - aimed at investigating (i) if there exist inter-species differences in the activity and phototactic behaviors of males and queens, (ii) whether these behaviors in the queen change after mating, and (iii) whether the activity rhythm of queens changes with age. We find that while activity profiles differ between C. paria and C. compressus virgin males and queens, such differences in queens disappear after mating. Once mated, the activity rhythm of queens shows little change with age; the rhythm in virgin queens, on the other hand, changes considerably. As virgins, C. paria queens are positively phototactic, while C. compressus queens are negatively phototactic. After mating, C. paria queens become less phototactic, particularly during the subjective night, while C. compressus queens remain negatively phototactic. These results indicate that there are considerable differences in the activity and phototactic behaviors of virgin queens of the two related species of Camponotus ants. Most of these differences disappear after mating, which suggests that these behaviors may have evolved primarily for the proper execution of pre-mating events.