{"id":662,"date":"2018-08-08T20:59:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T20:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/?p=662"},"modified":"2018-08-08T20:59:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T20:59:58","slug":"bee-ophysics-in-the-news-ostroverkhova-lab-studies-bee-visual-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/2018\/08\/08\/bee-ophysics-in-the-news-ostroverkhova-lab-studies-bee-visual-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Bee-ophysics in the news – Ostroverkhova lab studies bee visual response"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ostroverkhova group’s work on bee vision had attracted a lot of attention!<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>\n
Ostroverkhova et al examined responses of wild bees to traps designed to selectively stimulate either the blue or the green photoreceptor using sunlight-induced fluorescence in the 420-480 nm or 510-540 nm region. Image credit: Rebekka D.<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

KATU has an interview with Oksana Ostroverkhova at: https:\/\/katu.com\/news\/local\/wild-bees-are-attracted-to-blue-fluorescent-light-oregon-state-university-research-finds<\/a><\/p>\n

Sci-news has an article http:\/\/www.sci-news.com\/biology\/bees-blue-fluorescent-light-06121.html<\/p>\n

and there is a press release to go with their recent paper in Journal of Comparative Physiology A. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00359-018-1269-x<\/a><\/p>\n

CORVALLIS, Ore. \u2013 Researchers at Oregon State University have learned that a specific wavelength range of blue fluorescent light set bees abuzz.<\/p>\n

The research is important because bees have a nearly $15 billion dollar impact on the U.S. economy \u2013 almost 100 commercial crops would vanish without bees to transfer the pollen grains needed for reproduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blue fluorescence just triggered a crazy response in the bees, told them they must go to it,\u201d said the study\u2019s corresponding author, Oksana Ostroverkhova. \u201cIt\u2019s not just their vision, it\u2019s something behavioral that drives them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings are a powerful tool for assessing and manipulating bee populations \u2013 such as, for example, if a farmer needed to attract large numbers of bees for a couple of weeks to get his or her crop pollinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlue is broad enough wavelength-wise that we needed to figure out if it mattered to the bees if the light emitted by the sunlight-illuminated trap was more toward the purple end or the green end, and yes, it mattered,\u201d Ostroverkhova said. \u201cWhat\u2019s also important is now we\u2019ve created traps ourselves using stage lighting filters and fluorescent paint \u2013 we\u2019re not just reliant on whatever traps come in a box. We\u2019ve learned how to use commercially available materials to create something that\u2019s very deployable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fluorescent light is what\u2019s seen when a fluorescent substance absorbs ultraviolet rays or some other type of lower-wavelength radiation and then immediately emits it as higher-wavelength visible light \u2013 think about a poster whose ink glows when hit by the UV rays of a blacklight.<\/p>\n

Like humans, bees have \u201ctrichromatic\u201d vision: They have three types of photoreceptors in their eyes.<\/p>\n

Both people and bees have blue and green receptors, but the third type for people is red while the third kind for bees is ultraviolet \u2013 electromagnetic energy of a lower wavelength that\u2019s just outside the range of human vision.<\/p>\n

Flowers\u2019 vibrant colors and patterns \u2013 some of them detectable only with UV sight \u2013 are a way of helping pollinators like bees find nectar, a sugar-rich fluid produced by plants. Bees get energy from nectar and protein from pollen, and in the process of seeking food they transfer pollen from a flower\u2019s male anther to its female stigma.<\/p>\n

Building on her earlier research, Ostroverkhova, a physicist in OSU\u2019s College of Science, set out to determine if green fluorescence, like blue, was attractive to bees. She also wanted to learn whether all wavelengths of blue fluorescence were equally attractive, or if the drawing power tended toward the green or violet edge of the blue range.<\/p>\n

In field conditions that provided the opportunity to use wild bees of a variety of species \u2013 most bee-vision studies have been done in labs and used captive-reared honeybees \u2013 Ostroverkhova designed a collection of bee traps \u2013 some non-fluorescent, others fluorescent via sunlight \u2013 that her entomology collaborators set up in the field.<\/p>\n

Under varying conditions with a diverse set of landscape background colors, blue fluorescent traps proved the most popular by a landslide.<\/p>\n

Researchers examined responses to traps designed to selectively stimulate either the blue or the green photoreceptor using sunlight-induced fluorescence with wavelengths of 420 to 480 nanometers and 510 to 540\u00a0nanometers, respectively.<\/p>\n

They found out that selective excitation of the green photoreceptor type was not attractive, in contrast to that of the blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when we selectively highlighted the blue photoreceptor type, we learned the bees preferred blue fluorescence in the 430- to 480-nanometer range over that in the 400-420\u00a0region,\u201d Ostroverkhova said.<\/p>\n

Findings were recently published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A. The Agricultural Research Foundation and OSU supported this research.<\/p>\n

\\<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong> Images are available at http:\/\/bit.ly\/2JO7ypl<\/a> and http:\/\/bit.ly\/2MA4080<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ostroverkhova group’s work on bee vision had attracted a lot of attention! KATU has an interview with Oksana Ostroverkhova at: https:\/\/katu.com\/news\/local\/wild-bees-are-attracted-to-blue-fluorescent-light-oregon-state-university-research-finds Sci-news has an article http:\/\/www.sci-news.com\/biology\/bees-blue-fluorescent-light-06121.html and there is a press release to go with their recent paper in Journal of Comparative Physiology A. https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s00359-018-1269-x CORVALLIS, Ore. \u2013 Researchers at Oregon State University have… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6866,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2368,44556,523,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty","category-papers","category-research","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6866"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/spectrometer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}