Data from: Follow the flower: Approach-flight behaviour of bumblebees landing on a moving target
Data files
Mar 19, 2025 version files 17.31 MB
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data_bumblebee_landing_moving_flower.7z
17.31 MB
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README.md
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Abstract
While landing on flowers, pollinating insects often have to deal with flower movement caused by wind. Here, we determined the landing performance of bumblebees on a moving artificial flower, and how they use their visual-motor system to control their landings. To do this, we built an experimental setup containing a physical model of a flower, moving sideways using sinusoidal kinematics at various oscillation frequencies (up to 0.65 Hz, at constant amplitude of 5 cm). We filmed the landings of Bombus terrestris bumblebees on this moving flower model and extracted the flight kinematics and trajectories using deep neural network-based videography tracking. The bumblebees were capable of compensating for the detrimental effects of flower movement on landing performance for flower frequencies up to 0.53 Hz. Only at our maximum frequency of 0.65 Hz, the percentage of successful landings decreased, but landing accuracy and duration were not affected. To successfully land on the moving flower, the bumblebees gradually slowed down, aimed towards the middle of the flower and aligned with its movement. Our results indicated that bumblebees use modular visual-motor control feedback to do this: (1) they slow down by maintaining an approximately constant average optic expansion of the approaching flower image; (2) they aim towards the flower by keeping the flower in the middle of their view; (3) they align to the flower movement by minimizing the sideways optic flow of the moving flower image. Our findings increase our understanding of how flying insects land on flowers moved by wind.
Flight kinematics data of bumblebees landing on an artificial flower moving vertically at five different movement frequencies (0, 0.03 Hz, 0.24 Hz, 0.53 Hz, and 0.65 Hz). The dataset contains 728 successful landing manoeuvres of bumblebees from 2 hives. It includes the temporal dynamics of the position, velocity, and acceleration of the bumblebees and the flower during the approach flight of the bumblebees. NaN- not a number.
The bumblebee_data folder (containing 30 csv files) contains the x and y position of the bees, the vx and vy velocity of the bees, and the ax and ay acceleration of the bees in separate csv files. Position, velocity, and acceleration of the middle, left, right, head, and tail of the bumblebees are included. Each csv file inside this folder contains 728 columns and 300 rows, each column representing a separate landing trajectory over time. The trajectories are aligned with t=0 at the moment of touchdown, at row number 300. The flower kinematics at the corresponding times and trajectory numbers are included in the flower_data folder (containing 18 csv files). It contains the x and y position, the vx and vy velocity, and the ax and ay acceleration of the middle, left, and right of the artificial flower.
The time_s.csv file shows the time relative to the moment of touchdown during the approach flights of the bumblebees.
Flower movement frequency during each trajectory is given in flower_frequency.csv. It includes frequency 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, with:
0 = 0 Hz
1 = 0.03 Hz
2 = 0.24 Hz
3 = 0.53 Hz
4 = 0.65 Hz
Day number relative to the moment the experiment started is given by day_number.csv.
The experiments were performed using two different hives. Hive number is given in the file hive_number.csv.