Trapped: Assessing Attractiveness of Potential Food Sources to Bumblebees |
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Authors: | T M Hudon C M S Plowright |
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Institution: | (1) School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada; |
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Abstract: | Unrewarding artificial flowers that trapped approaching bumblebees were used here for the first time to assess the effects
of several floral characteristics on floral attractiveness to bumblebees that never obtained food from flowers. Floral size
and floral scent had no discernable effect. In a comparison between two colors (white and blue) and two shapes (radial and
square), choice proportions for blue radial flowers were significantly greater than chance. Our proposed method is an alternative
to prior training, with food associated either with visual or olfactory stimuli, which is unnecessary to obtain floral preferences
by free-flying bumblebees exploring potential food sources. |
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Keywords: | |
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