Bumblebees use perfume patterns to tell flowers apart

[Judi Lynn]

Study also suggests they can spot similarities between patterns of scent and those made with colour

Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Wed 13 Jun 2018 01.30 EDT Last modified on Wed 13 Jun 2018 05.32 EDT

Pollinators don’t just wing it when it comes to finding a sweet treat: the shape, colour, perfume and even electrical charge of flowers are all known to offer clues.

But now researchers say bumblebees also use another floral feature to guide them: how the concentration of a scent varies across the flower’s surface.

“[This study shows that] bees can tell the difference between flowers where the only difference is their spatial arrangement of scent – and that suggests they could use that information to make their foraging more efficient,” said Dr David Lawson, co-author of from the University of Bristol.

What’s more, scientists found that bees appear able to apply what they have learnt from patterns of scent to patterns of colour, suggesting the fuzzy critters might be even smarter than suspected.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/13/bumblebees-use-perfume-patterns-to-tell-flowers-apart