Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 1: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems I (with BP, talks from DY)

DY 1.5: Talk

Monday, March 26, 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)