IFIBYNE   05513
INSTITUTO DE FISIOLOGIA, BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR Y NEUROCIENCIAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
The honeybee waggle dance: can we follow the steps?
Autor/es:
GRÜTER, CHRISTOPH; FARINA, WALTER M
Revista:
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION - TREE
Editorial:
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
Referencias:
Año: 2009 p. 242 - 247
ISSN:
0169-5347
Resumen:
The honeybee (Apis mellifera) waggle dance, wherebydancing bees communicate the location of profitablefood sources to other bees in the hive, is one of themost celebrated communication behaviours in theanimal world. Dance followers, however, often appearto ignore this location information, the so-called dancelanguage, after leaving the nest. Here we consider whyforagers follow dances and discuss the function of thedance as a multicomponent signal. We argue that the‘dance language’ is just one information component ofthe waggle dance and that the two terms should not beused synonymously. We propose that location informationis often backup information to be used in caseinformation acquired directly from the environmentabout food sources is not available, is of poor qualityor is associated with unprofitable food sources.