Bumblebees have a secret technique for flowering the plants they pollinate. This behavior, never documented before, is described in Science.
When the plants around their hive are not yet in bloom, bumblebees use a unique technique to speed up their flowering and revel in their pollen. This is the first time that this behavior has been documented in bumblebees and it is still bathed in mystery.
A group of scientists from the Zurich Polytechnic was watching bumblebees when they saw one attacking the leaves of the plant. " Initially, we wanted to see if they removed the plant tissue, fed on it or brought the leaf material to the nest Explains Consuelo de Moraes, first author of the study, to Scientific American. As other scientific work suggests that the stress can provoke flowering plants, the scientist and her team wondered if bumblebees could help plants bloom. An experience that has been the subject ofa publication in Science.
A bite that makes plants bloom
Plants of tomato and mustard were placed near a swarm of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) in laboratory. As in nature, insects attacked the leaves of seedlings without flowers by biting them. Scientists, for their part, imitated the attack of bumblebees by piercing the leaves with a razor blade. The two groups of plants have bloomed long before those who had suffered no damage.
But bumblebees seem to have a very special technique! In fact, the plants damaged by them hatched several weeks before those damaged by scientists. The origin of this behavior in bumblebees is not yet fully understood.
Scientists want to know how this behavior has evolved and whether it is present in others cash drone. On the plant side, there is also everything to discover. According to the publication, the saliva of the insect would have an important role in chemical reactions that occur in the plant after a bite.
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Animal intelligence: a drone learns to pull a string! For scientists, these images are surprising. Bumblebees were able to learn a complex technique: pulling on a rope to catch otherwise inaccessible food (a sweet liquid). Until then, only birds and a few mammals were believed to have this ability. Better still, this know-how has been passed on to other bumblebees, who have observed their learned counterparts. Learning, by an individual and within a group, is therefore much more widespread in the animal world than imagined.
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