Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 19, 2026
07:26
Foraging Path-length Protocol for Drosophila melanogaster Larvae
Published on: April 23, 2016
10.0K
Honeybee economics: optimisation of foraging in a variable world
Anton Stabentheiner1, Helmut Kovac1
1Institute of Zoology, University of Graz, Universitätsplatz 2, 8010 Graz, Austria.
Scientific Reports
|June 21, 2016
Summary
Honeybee foragers balance high energy costs with food intake by flexibly switching between
Area of Science:
- Animal Behavior
- Insect Physiology
- Ecology
Background:
- Honeybees exhibit persistent endothermy during foraging, leading to high energy demands.
- Foraging requires maximizing intake rate while optimizing energy expenditure in variable environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how honeybee foragers manage the conflict between energy costs and gains in a variable environment.
- To determine the economic strategies employed by honeybees to optimize foraging efficiency.
Main Methods:
- Simultaneous measurement of energy costs, gains, intake rate, and efficiency in honeybee foragers.
- Observation of foraging behavior under varying microclimate and food availability conditions.
Main Results:
- Honeybees employ an 'investment-guided' strategy to maximize net intake rate when food is abundant, utilizing self-generated heat and solar heat to increase body temperature for higher suction velocity.
- When intake rate is restricted, they switch to an 'economizing' strategy to optimize energetic efficiency, as increased body temperature would not improve intake.
- This flexible strategy allows honeybees to adapt to environmental variations.
Conclusions:
- Honeybee foragers demonstrate a flexible economic strategy, switching between maximizing intake rate and optimizing efficiency based on environmental conditions and food availability.
- This adaptive foraging behavior is crucial for maximizing colony resource intake and maintaining energetic efficiency in dynamic environments.
More Related Videos
11:53Spatial Multiobjective Optimization of Agricultural Conservation Practices using a SWAT Model and an Evolutionary Algorithm
Published on: December 9, 2012
13.6K
03:53Author Spotlight: Exploring Behavioral Pathways Through Cross-Species Insights in Foraging and Communication
Published on: November 17, 2023
1.6K
Related Concept Videos
00:48Optimal Foraging
14.2K
How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
14.2K
01:28Methods of Medium Optimization
1
Optimizing growth media enhances microbial proliferation and maximizes product yield. Statistical experimental design methodologies provide structured and reproducible approaches, offering progressively higher levels of robustness and efficiency.The One-Factor-at-a-Time (OFAT) MethodThe One-Factor-at-a-Time (OFAT) method involves adjusting a single variable while keeping all others constant. However, it cannot detect interactions between variables, often leading to suboptimal outcomes when...
1
02:39Predator-Prey Interactions
22.1K
Predators consume prey for energy. Predators that acquire prey and prey that avoid predation both increase their chances of survival and reproduction (i.e., fitness). Routine predator-prey interactions elicit mutual adaptations that improve predator offenses, such as claws, teeth, and speed, as well as prey defenses, including crypsis, aposematism, and mimicry. Thus, predator-prey interactions resemble an evolutionary arms race.
22.1K
01:26Optimization Problems
124
Optimization problems often involve identifying maximum or minimum values under specific constraints. A well-known example is determining the longest horizontal pipe that can be moved around a right-angled corner, where a 3-meter-wide hallway meets a 2-meter-wide hallway. This scenario, common in architectural design and industrial transport, can be understood conceptually through geometric and trigonometric reasoning.To visualize the problem, consider the pipe as a straight line that touches...
124
02:02Ecological Niches
27.2K
All organisms have a position within an ecosystem. The complete set of living and nonliving factors—including food resources, climate, and terrain—that define the position of a given organism are collectively referred to as the organism’s ecological niche.
27.2K
00:51Energy Budgets
11.1K
Organisms must balance energy intake with the energy required for growth, maintenance and reproduction. These trade-offs result in a variety of survivorship and reproductive strategies, including semelparity and iteroparity. Semelparous species, like annual plants, have only one reproductive episode in their lifetimes and consequently have short lifespans. Iteroparous species, by contrast, have many reproductive events during their lifetimes but have relatively few offspring. These two...
11.1K