When it derive time for honeybee swarm to split off from their mother settlement and find a unexampled home to live , something remarkable happen . To transmit most in effect , they organize themselves exactly like the neurons of a complex brain .
Sometimes , a honeybee colony grows too enceinte , and so a cloud reveal off in lodge to find a potential new home , usually somewhere like a secure possibility in a tree diagram . unlike bees suss out out different potential young dwelling , and those that have happen a suitable landing website communicate this to the others by dancing , reiterate a elementary shape eight pattern that the other bees can interpret for bed the management and distance of their potential fresh home .
clock time is of the essence here , since the integral swarm is exposed and vulnerable to the elements , and they ’re also overleap out on all-important dearest harvest time . The trouble is that scouts will often number back having discover multiple dependable internet site , and so the horde has to very quickly decide which of these option is the respectable one . They ca n’t afford to pass too much time deliberating , but at the same a bad choice could wipe out the entire settlement .
Researchers P. Kirk Visscher of UC Riverside and Thomas Seeley of Cornell have expose a of the essence way in which bees come to these decisions as quickly as possible , and it in reality precisely mime what give out on with neurons in the complex learning ability of humans and other primates .
“ It come out that the closure signals in bee swarms serve the same use as the repressing connexion in the brains of monkeys deciding how to move their eyes in reception to visual input signal . In one case we have bee and in the other we have neurons that suppress the activeness horizontal surface of unit – dancing bees or nerve shopping mall – that are stage different alternatives . Bee behavior can cast some light on general issue of decision making . bee are a lot bigger than neurons for sure , and may be easygoing to study ! ”
This phenomenon , known as crown of thorns inhibition , serves precisely the same affair with bees that it does in skittish systems . It ’s a way of avoid decisiveness - making impasse when presented with a exercise set of every bit workable choice . Visscher excuse :
“ The message the transmitter scout is conveying to the dancer appear to be that the social dancer should restrict her enthusiasm , because there is another nest situation suitable of consideration . Such an repressing signaling is not necessarily hostile . It ’s simply saying , ‘ look a hour , here ’s something else to consider , so let ’s not be precipitate in recruit every bee to a website that may not be the good one for the swarm . All the bees have a vulgar interest in choosing the best available site . This is critical , because the swarm must choose a individual nest land site , even if two sites of equal timbre are available . This crossing prohibition curtails the production of wag saltation for , and thus the recruitment of bee to , a competing site . ”
For honeybees to choose a Modern rest home , a give site must attract a sure phone number of sentinel bees . Once it becomes absolved that a “ quorum ” of pathfinder have settled on a exclusive spot , a pipage signaling goes through the swarm , telling the quietus of the bees to develop to wing . This is also where another cycle of check signal are place to the dancing lookout man , both those for and against the take site . Visscher explains :
“ ostensibly at this stop , the subject matter of the stop sign change , and can be consider of as , ‘ cease dancing , it is time to get ready for the swarm to fly . ’ It is important for the picket to be with the swarm when it take off , because they are responsible for for guiding the flying to the nest web site . ”
While we do n’t yet know just how exactly honeybees mime our neurons , it ’s a fascinating reminder of how a lot of the same basic structures can be found throughout nature , even in two radical as completely unlike as a swarm of honeybees and the neurons of the primate brain . This is quite perchance the craziest example yet of convergent evolution , if nothing else .
ViaScience Express . Image by kaibara87 onFlickr .
BiologyEvolutionNeuronsScienceZoology
Daily Newsletter
Get the good technical school , science , and acculturation word in your inbox daily .
news show from the future , delivered to your present tense .
You May Also Like
