EEB440H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter N/A: Flower Constancy
27 Apr 2016
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Costs to foraging bumble bees of switching plant species summary. Flower constancy is the idea that bees will maintain the same flower species when switching between flowers. Darwin hypothesized that a bee learns methods for handling one species, and these methods interfere with handling another species. When visiting complex flowers, bees showed flower constancy that was not seen when visiting simple flowers. Increased handling time and foraging error, though not enough to account for the switches. Waser suggests that bees have a memory constraint preventing them from switching often. Butterflies have increased handling time when switching between flowers by about. 300%, whereas bees have increased handling time of about 47-120%, which is not much to account for flower constancy. Bees in patch 1 (simple flowers) frequently switched between flowers. No evidence of constancy between patch and bouquet. Choice in this patch influence by corolla tube depth. No evidence of increased handling time when switching flowers.
