Dancing to different tunes: heterospecific deciphering of the honeybee waggle dance |
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| Authors: | K Tan M X Yang S E Radloff H R Hepburn Z Y Zhang L J Luo H Li |
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| Institution: | (1) Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Science, Kunming, Yunnan Province, 650223, People’s Republic of China;(2) Eastern Bee Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Heilongtan, Kunming, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China;(3) Department of Statistics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa;(4) Department of Zoology and Entomology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa |
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| Abstract: | Although the structure of the dance language is very similar among species of honeybees, communication of the distance component
of the message varies both intraspecifically and interspecifically. However, it is not known whether different honeybee species
would attend interspecific waggle dances and, if so, whether they can decipher such dances. Using mixed-species colonies of
Apis cerana and Apis mellifera, we show that, despite internal differences in the structure of the waggle dances of foragers, both species attend, and act
on the information encoded in each other’s waggle dances but with limited accuracy. These observations indicate that direction
and distance communication pre-date speciation in honeybees. |
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| Keywords: | Apis mellifera Apis cerana Waggle dance Interspecific communication |
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