This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Landing on a moving target is a challenge for all flying animals. For bumblebees, a flower swaying in the wind creates an erratic landing pad.
Reaching it means matching its sideways motion while continuing to face it. When the bee turns in flight, its view of the flower changes, which complicates the feat. In a new study, researchers Chenyao Wang and colleagues at Wageningen University and Delft University of Technology placed a circular, flowerlike platform at a hive entrance, where bumblebees learned to land to return home.
During the experiments, the flower model moved sideways through two complete cycles per second, traveling 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) to either side of its central position. Three high-speed cameras captured 48 landing sequences. The team reconstructed the flights in three dimensions to separate two actions that happened together: moving sideways to follow the platform and turning to face it.
The results, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, suggest that bumblebees handle these two jobs using the same kinds of information in different ways. Models combining the flower's movement with the bee's turning rate closely reproduced the insects' movements—and raised a question about how bees keep their target in view. The experiments showed that the bees closely matched the platform's sideways movements but lagged behind in time.
That pattern allowed them to react to perceived movement without needing to predict the flower's path. To move sideways, the bees banked. Analysis of the 10 longest recordings showed that their tilts closely matched the needed acceleration to redirect their aerodynamic force, much as a helicopter does.
But what tells a bee when and how strongly to correct its flight? A flower's image can move across a bee's field of vision because the flower moves, because the bee moves or because the bee turns. Tracking only the reaction to the image does not reveal which cause impacted the bee's movement.
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