Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 3: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems I (with DY)
BP 3.5: Vortrag
Montag, 26. März 2012, 10:30–10:45, MA 001
Spatio-temporal dynamics of bumblebees foraging under predation risk — Friedrich Lenz1, Thomas C. Ings2, Lars Chittka2, Aleksei V. Chechkin3, and •Rainer Klages1 — 1Queen Mary University of London, School of Mathematical Sciences, UK — 2Queen Mary University of London, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, UK — 3Inst, f. Theor. Physics, NSC KIPT, Kharkov, Ukraine
We study bumblebees searching for nectar in a laboratory experiment with and without different types of artificial spiders as predators. We find that the flight velocities obey mixed probability distributions reflecting the access to the food sources while the threat posed by the spiders shows up only in the velocity correlations. This means that the bumblebees adjust their flight patterns spatially to the environment and temporally to predation risk. Key information on response to environmental changes is thus contained in temporal correlation functions and not in spatial distributions.
[1] preprint arXiv:1108.1278 (2011)