Do bees and flowers communicate?
A recent publication from SyFy builds on research published at the American Physical Society (APS). The reachers’ main point is that bees and flowers communicate electronically.
Here is the published summary / abstract from the APS:
Electricity is everywhere and is essential to the functioning of life. Understanding how organisms organise themselves using the natural manifestations of electricity is just as relevant as studying vision, smell or hearing [1]. Aquatic animals, such as sharks, rays, some dolphins and electric fish, have been known for quite some time to use electroreception, yet only recently have terrestrial animals been shown to detect weak electric fields [2]. We have discovered that bumblebees can detect and learn about the weak electrostatic field that arises when they approach a flower [2]. Can bumblebees and other arthropods be regarded as soft condensed matter electrified? Flying bees are usually positively charged (30-120 pC), whilst flowers tend to be negatively charged. In addition, the fair-weather vertical atmospheric potential gradient (APG, 100V/m, resulting from atmospheric ionization and the global electric circuit) contributes to this Bee-Plant-Atmosphere interaction. We have found that triboelectrification and weak Coulomb force are together relevant to the sensory biology of bees, other terrestrial arthropods and plants. Detection mechanisms are shown to involve electromechanical coupling of small charged and innervated hairs on the animal’s body. Recently, we showed that host-seeking ticks can be attracted to their vertebrate hosts using electrostatic force [3]. Also, during dispersal, spiders engage in ballooning behaviour, exploiting the Coulomb force generated by their negative silk threads entering the positive APG, thus generating enough lift to become airborne. This work opens-up the enticing possibility that arthropods, in effect the majority of animal species, are capable of aerial electroreception, a sensory modality, a previously unknown “6th sense”, that humans seem to lack.
APS March Meeting 2024
SyFy author summarizes two key points that may not readily surface from the above summary.
First, an older research study delivered similar results and hypothesized that the bee’s ability to perceive electrical fields may extend to communicating with flowers:
Research from 2013 found that bees can detect the electrical fields of flowers and that flowers might use those fields as part of a package, alongside colorful petals and pretty smells, to make themselves attractive to pollinators.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bees-and-flowers-talk-to-each-other-with-electricity
Second, that research also suggested that certain fertilizers may alter the electrical properties of flowers and render the bee to flower communication less effective. One can quickly infer the resulting problems.
SyFy simplified the communication methods as:
As they fly through their environment, bumblebees pick up a positive electrical charge, while flowers are negatively charged. That difference in charge presents an opportunity for information exchange and scientists wondered if flowers might be taking advantage of that. They found that the stems of flowers like petunias and daffodils became more charged when a bee was approaching.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bees-and-flowers-talk-to-each-other-with-electricity
They also stretched their findings with a specific experiment to suggest that flower to flower communication is not out of the equation as well.
Featured photo from SyFy