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<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/observations">
Observations</a> - May 27, 2010<br>
<br>
Tiny radio transmitters track flight of tropical orchid bees<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=tiny-radio-transmitters-track-fligh-2010-05-27">
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=tiny-radio-transmitters-track-fligh-2010-05-27</a>
<br><br>
By Katherine Harmon <br>
<br>
Rare
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=virus-ravages-orchids">
tropical orchids</a> can be few and far between in the wild, often
separated by spotty landscape and human-made obstacles. But powerful
tropical orchid
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=buzz-on-bees">
bees</a> do the legor wingwork, flying great distances to pollinate
isolated flowers and keep the flora gene pool fresh. <br><br>
Just how far and where exactly these bees fly, however, has remained
relatively obscure to researchers. Some studies had tracked bees by
marking them and using bait
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=sneaky-orchid-drives-wasps-wild-09-08-06">
flowers to lure them in</a> for counting or by scouting out specific
flowers that bees appeared to return to. But these results have created
only a rough sketch of the range and routes of these bees. <br><br>
A group of researchers now has acquired far more specific data, attaching
tiny, 300-milligram radio transmitters to the backs of male orchid bees
(<i>Exaerete frontalis</i>) to track their movements. <br><br>
The bees clocked in at an average of 9.5 meters per minute, usually
logging more than three hours of air time a flight. The longest flight
recorded was nearly two kilometers, and one intrepid bee soared over the
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-plan-for-panama">
Panama Canal</a>, eventually ending up some five kilometers away before
returning days later closer to where it had been caught. <br><br>
"The data confirm that male orchid bees habitually travel a distance
that can help connect widely dispersed orchids or other plants which they
alone pollinate, and that produce a few
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=floral-footprint">
short-lived flowers</a> daily," the researchers concluded in
<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0010738">
their study</a>, published online May 26 in the journal <i>PLoS ONE</i>.
<br><br>
Burdening 612-milligram bees with radio transmitters might sound
excessive, but the researchers maintained that the bees can "easily
carry" them, Martin Wikelski, director of the Max Plank Institute
for Ornithology, said in a prepared statement. And another member of the
team, Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum,
explained in a statement that "carrying the transmitter could reduce
the distance that the bees travel, but even if the flight distances we
recorded are the minimum distances these orchid
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solving-the-mystery-of%E2%80%94i">
bees can fly</a>, they are impressive, long-distance movements." Of
the 14 bees outfitted with transmitters, five were tracked through the
full 10-day duration of the transmitter battery life, four were found
dead and the others were lost. <br><br>
"Radio tracking significantly improves our understanding of bees and
the plants they pollinate," David Roubik, a senior scientist at the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, said in a prepared statement.
"Now we can track orchid bees to get the distances and spatial
patterns involvedvital details which have completely eluded researchers
in the past." <br><br>
"Given the escalating rate of human interference, and the potential
for
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=saving-the-honeybee">
deterioration of pollination services</a>, it is critical that we start
to understand the complexities of these relationships," the authors
noted in their paper. The new data from this study and others could help
inform conservation studies as well as work in agriculture and general
biology. At the very least, these results "help to explain how
orchids these bees pollinate can be so rare," Kays said.<br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
*************************<br>
Scott Hoffman Black<br>
Ecologist/Entomologist<br>
Executive Director<br>
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation<br>
4828 SE Hawthorne <br>
Portland, OR 97215 <br>
Direct line (503) 449-3792<br>
sblack@xerces.org<br><br>
<i>The Xerces Society is an international, nonprofit organization that
protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their
habitat. <br>
</i> <br>
To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work, <br>
please visit
<a href="http://www.xerces.org/">www.xerces.org</a>.<br><br>
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