VideoLab

Electric Flower Power

[Read the article] Insects, including bees, rely on many senses in their search for food. In a Report in the 4 April issue of Science, Clarke et al. reveal that in addition to sight and smell, bumblebees also detect floral electric fields. In this video, a bumblebee’s approach to a flower is mapped to the recording of the plant’s electric field. Because both the flower and bee respond to each other’s fields, this may provide a rapid form of communication between plant and pollinator.