Department of Entomology

Title: Unraveling animal movement in complex environments: biomechanics, behavior, and bumblebees

Abstract: Insect flight requires stable and coordinated movement in complex natural environments. Current understanding of insect flight biomechanics largely stems from laboratory investigations that are sanitized of the challenges found in the natural world. To develop more ecologically relevant understanding of insect flight, we require new techniques to monitor freely-motivated movement in realistic environments. In this talk I will present our research on bumblebee flight (Bombus impatiens) in naturalistic, ecologically relevant scenarios. We have developed methods to observe the movement behaviors, and track the identity of individuals over their lifetimes with resolution at the millisecond. We performed experiments over three-summers and captured over 50,000 sets of multi-camera high-speed videos to resolve the three-dimensional movements and posture of flying bumblebees. Bar-codes attached to the bees enabled identity tracking and simultaneous weather and environment monitoring provided information about ambient flight conditions. I will discuss the methodology and outcomes of these experiments in the context of three main findings: 1) flight performance of foraging bumblebees is sensitive to environmental conditions such as barometric pressure and temperature, 2) bees perform stereotyped movements in flight to avoid collision with obstacles, likely due to biomechanics and sensory-processing efficiencies, 3) despite attempts to avoid obstacles, bees frequently collide with objects when navigating spatially complex environments. The results from these experiments give us a broader understanding of bee flight behaviors in natural environments. More broadly, the methods we have developed may inspire—or even be of direct use—to biologists interested in long-term monitoring of biomechanics and behavior.