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The buzzing bees slowed for two minutes of last summer's total eclipse.
The insects took their break on August 21, 2017, when the moon was blocking the sunlight last year, according to a generalized acoustic monitoring reported in the newspaper. Annals of the Entomological Society of America last week.
"We did not think that the change would be so brutal, that the bees would continue to fly up to the totality and then only, completely," said Candace Galen, head of the research team at the University. University of Missouri. "It was like" turning off the light "at the summer camp! This surprised us. "
The tiny USB microphones were placed at 16 locations along the total eclipse path in Oregon, Idaho and Missouri. The 400 volunteers, including scientists and public volunteers, as well as some elementary school classes, have also deployed sensors to capture light and temperature readings, the researchers write.
Participants also noted the species of bees under surveillance, including drones and bees.
The USB recorders were sent to the Missouri laboratory, where the analysis was undertaken. The data was cross-checked with the precise timing of the eclipse effects, according to the paper.
During the minutes of relative darkness, the bees almost all stopped buzzing and their flight habits changed. Indeed, they began to behave as if a steep night had fallen, report the scientists.
But shortly before all and soon after, the flights were longer than normal.
Follow-up research is planned. The total solar eclipse that will occur on April 8, 2024 in North America is an opportunity to determine exactly where the bees are going when the eclipse is total: that these longer flights indicate slower flights under lighting. darker or a complete return to their nest.
For now, it shows some of the behavior and behavior of bees for the first time.
"The eclipse gave us the opportunity to ask ourselves if the new environmental context – open skies and mid-day – would change bees' behavioral response to darkness and dim light," said Galen. "As we have found, complete darkness causes the same behavior in bees, regardless of the time or the context. And this new information on the cognition of bees. "
They are not just bees. The first solar eclipse of North America, which began almost a century ago, enabled scientists from all over the Western Hemisphere to observe the flora and fauna.
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