Tiny USB microphones reveal surprise behavior of bees

People could not stop from buzzing during the great total solar eclipse of North America in 2017. The bees, however, remained silent.

In fact, little vibrators have completely stopped flying during the big event, according to a study published Wednesday in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

Although a number of studies have focused on the behavior of animals during solar eclipses, few have detected insects. For example, researchers from the University of Missouri have commissioned citizen scientists and elementary school teams to set up acoustic monitoring stations to listen to bees on August 21, the day of the first eclipse. Total Sun in 99 years to cross the United States from one ocean to the other.

The researchers predicted that bee activity would drop as sunlight decreased and reached a minimum at all.

"But we did not think that the change would be so abrupt, that the bees would continue to fly to the totality and then only to stop completely," said science researcher Candace Galen, a science teacher. at the University of Missouri, in a statement. . "It was as if the lights had gone out at the summer camp. This surprised us."

Bees usually fly more slowly at dusk and return to their colonies at night. The fact that the solar eclipse caused similar behavior provides information on how creatures respond when environmental signals unexpectedly occur.

"The eclipse gave us the opportunity to ask ourselves if the new environmental context – open skies and noon – would alter bees' behavioral response to dim light or dim light," Galen said. "As we have found, complete darkness causes the same behavior in bees, regardless of when or the context.This is a new information on bee cognition."

For the project, more than 400 participants, including teachers and students, set up 16 bee monitoring stations on their way to the entire Oregon, Idaho and Missouri. The stations were equipped with USB microphones the size of flash drives attached to lanyards near bee pollinated flowers, far from pedestrians and vehicles.

Once the eclipse passed, the participants sent the sensors to the Galen lab, where the team compared the eclipse periods of each site and analyzed the number and duration of the buzzes in the area. 39; bees.

After the eclipse, participating students learned how to measure the frequency, amplitude, and duration of buzzing, as well as using this data to recognize and count bee buzzing in recordings made in their schools. The research team then asked the students to draw drawings illustrating the eclipse from the point of view of the bee in order to synthesize their findings.

These students will be more likely to observe bees during eclipses if they wish. Total solar eclipses are rare, but there are more on Earth between now and 2031, in case anyone would like to give memo to bees.

Take it to the extreme: mix crazy situations – eruptive volcanic eruptions, nuclear collapses, 30-foot waves – with everyday technologies. This is what happens.

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