PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

FReD can help explain how a bee sees!

FReD can help explain how a bee sees!
2010-12-11
(Press-News.org) Bees can see colours but they perceive the world differently to us, including variations in hue that we cannot ourselves distinguish.

Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and Imperial College London have developed FReD – the Floral Reflectance Database – which holds data on what colours flowers appear to be, to bees. The development of the catalogue, which has involved a collaborative effort between researchers at two Schools at Queen Mary is reported in the journal PLoS ONE.

The work addresses the existing issue that records of flower colours do not take the visual systems of pollinator insects into account. Bees – for example – have evolved completely different colour detection mechanisms to humans, and can see colours outside our own capabilities in the ultra-violet range. Professor Lars Chittka from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences said: "This research highlights that the world we see is not the physical or the 'real' world – different animals have very different senses, depending on the environment the animals operate in."

Professor Chittka and his team have measured the spectral reflectance of a number of flowers in different locations and analysed what bumblebees perceive, including different shades of ultra-violet. The image above shows a photograph of a creeping Zinnia (Sanvitalia procumbens) using a UV filter, giving just one example of the colours that are 'hidden' to us. Queen Mary PhD student Sarah Arnold, who is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), was also involved with the project, she said: "We have created a database in which the colours of flowers are indexed from this vitally important pollinator's point of view. For the first time, this database will allow us to analyse global trends in flower colour, for example how flower colours might change in areas with high UV radiation. There are many possible applications for scientists from different fields."

Co-author Professor Vincent Savolainen, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, who holds a joint post at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, adds: "We hope this work can help biologists understand how plants have evolved in different habitats - from biodiversity hotspots in South Africa to the cold habitats of northern Europe. FReD's global records may show how flower colour could have changed over time, and how this relates to the different insects that pollinate them, and other factors in their local environment."

Samia Faruq from the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science is assisting Professor Chittka on an EPSRC funded PhD studentship, and is an expert in the computer modelling side of the project: "FReD provides over 2000 records with the colours that the bee sees presented in a very simple way. A successful flower has to be 'noticed' by the bee, and FReD provides a better understanding of the strategy flowers attain.

"Colour patterns emerging from the location or altitude in which flowers are found may in turn increase our understanding of the plant-pollinator relationship. We will also be able to determine if flower colours in a given location are converging or diverging in order to give themselves the best chance of reproducing."

Professor Peter McOwan, a computer scientist who helped in developing the technical side of the project, commented: "This combination of biology and computer science, allowing scientist to collaboratively access important data in new ways shows the power of combining these two scientific disciplines. This interdisciplinary approach can produce significant new applications that will help make a real impact in better understand the natural world."

The database is freely searchable and open for international contribution, and will inform future ecological studies. "The records can be used to link flowers together by colour, although they appear different to us. On a global scale we will be able to identify the colours preferred by pollinators and see how this varies. This is very significant in terms of the global food supply, which relies on these insects and bees in particular" added Professor Chittka.





INFORMATION:


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
FReD can help explain how a bee sees!

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Boxing -- bad for the brain

2010-12-11
Up to 20% of professional boxers develop neuropsychiatric sequelae. But which acute complications and which late sequelae can boxers expect throughout the course of their career? These are the questions studied by Hans Förstl from the Technical University Munich and his co-authors in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[47]: 835-9). Their evaluation of the biggest studies on the subject of boxers' health in the past 10 years yielded the following results: The most relevant acute consequence is the knock-out, which conforms ...

Wind and water have shaped Schiaparelli on Mars

Wind and water have shaped Schiaparelli on Mars
2010-12-11
The small crater embedded in the northwestern rim of the Schiaparelli impact basin features prominently in this new image from ESA's Mars Express. All around is evidence for past water and the great martian winds that periodically blow. Schiaparelli is a large impact basin about 460 km in diameter located in the eastern Terra Meridiani region of the equator of Mars. The centre of the basin lies at about 3°S/17°E and is named after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835�). Although he also studied Mercury and Venus, he is best known for his observations ...

Beyond bars

2010-12-11
Despite threats of violence, imprisonment and death, writers around the world continue to fight to make their voices heard. The latest issue of Index on Censorship pays tribute to one of the world's longest running campaigns for free expression, English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC). Founded in 1960, the WiPC supports and protects writers facing persecution around the globe. Contributors to Beyond Bars – including award-winning authors Margaret Atwood, Sir Tom Stoppard and William Boyd – highlight the vital role writers can play in supporting their colleagues. ...

Assessing the seismic hazard of the central eastern United States

Assessing the seismic hazard of the central eastern United States
2010-12-11
As the U.S. policy makers renew emphasis on the use of nuclear energy in their efforts to reduce the country's oil dependence, other factors come into play. One concern of paramount importance is the seismic hazard at the site where nuclear reactors are located. Russell A. Green, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, spent five years as an earthquake engineer for the U.S. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in Washington, D.C., prior to becoming a university professor. Part of his responsibility at the safety board was to perform ...

Iron legacy leaves soil high in manganese

Iron legacy leaves soil high in manganese
2010-12-11
Iron furnaces that once dotted central Pennsylvania may have left a legacy of manganese enriched soils, according to Penn State geoscientists. This manganese can be toxic to trees, especially sugar maples, and other vegetation. The research, which quantified the amounts of manganese in soil core samples, was part of work done at the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory funded by the National Science Foundation. "Our group's focus was to study the soil chemistry," said Elizabeth M. Herndon, graduate student in geosciences. "We saw excess manganese in the soil and ...

Twin study helps scientists link relationship among ADHD, reading, math

2010-12-11
Children with ADHD can sometimes have more difficulties on math and reading tests compared to their peers. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, used identical and fraternal twins to look at the genetic and environmental influences underlying ADHD behaviors, reading, and math skills in children in an attempt to better understand the relationship among them. Sara Hart, of the Florida State University, and her colleagues used twins enrolled in a long-term study of reading and math. Hart says by focusing ...

EARTH: Trade imbalance, America exports emissions to China

2010-12-11
Alexandria, VA – America has made great strides in recent years to reduce carbon emissions by increasing efficiency and turning to other, low or non-carbon energy sources. Meanwhile, carbon emissions in China have grown dramatically during that same time. EARTH looks at this disparity and asks the difficult questions about who is to blame when the coal China is burning is imported from "cleaner" countries and the emissions are produced to manufacture goods exported back to places with lower emissions. Learn more about this eye-opening subject in January's featured article ...

Drugs are safe, active in patients normally ineligible for clinical trial

Drugs are safe, active in patients normally ineligible for clinical trial
2010-12-11
ORLANDO - A two-drug combination is safe and active in newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome patients who are usually excluded from clinical trials because they have other illnesses or poor performance status - a measure of disease progression - researchers reported this week at the 52nd American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting. "Our findings suggest current eligibility standards that prevent participation by these patients in phase I and phase II clinical trials might be inadequate," said Guillermo Garcia-Manero, M.D., professor in ...

New research reveals details of microbe's extraordinary maintenance and repair system

2010-12-11
Scientists have discovered how a network of repair proteins enables bacteria to prioritise the repair of the most heavily used regions of the DNA molecules that carry the instructions necessary for living cells to function. The research, carried out by academics at the University of Bristol and published in Molecular Cell (Dec. 2010), reveals that there are greater similarities between the DNA repair systems of bacteria and humans than had been suspected. When the chemical "letters" in a cell's DNA book of instructions are damaged the instructions become difficult ...

Poor breast cancer prognosis associated with presence of circulating tumor, cancer stem cells

2010-12-11
San Antonio - Metastatic breast cancer patients whose blood contains circulating tumor cells (CTCs) before or after treatment with high-dose chemotherapy and blood stem cell transplant have shorter survival periods, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The findings were presented today in a poster session at the 33rd Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. In addition, patients with higher percentages of epithelial cells, or the presence of a specific cellular transition, had higher chances ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

We might inhale 68,000 lung-penetrating microplastics daily in our homes and cars – 100x previous estimates

Indian adults who move to cities are significantly more likely to become obese than their rural counterparts - and the longer they stay, the greater the risk

Instagram images could influence public opinion on certain major events

Different dimensions of psychopathy might be associated with different physiological underpinnings of facial emotion recognition - and oxytocin could affect this skill - per scoping review of 66 studi

How cumulative heat exposure affects students

An international survey of over 300 adults reveals that males born in summer are potentially more prone to depression than those born in other seasons

The unusual head of a fish and the puzzle of its genes

How does metformin lower blood sugar?

Increasing solar power could lead to significant cuts in CO2 emissions

Black Death offers window into how childhood malnutrition affects adult health

Clinical trial finds safe, effective treatment for children with severe post-Covid syndrome

Researchers map where solar energy delivers the biggest climate payoff

Carbon fiber boosts dry-processed battery performance

Influenza-associated acute necrotizing encephalopathy in US children

Rainy tropics could face unprecedented droughts as an Atlantic current slows

‘One and done’: A single shot at birth may shield children from HIV for years, study finds

New method for detecting neutrinos

Respiratory viruses can wake up breast cancer cells in lungs

Stroke center certification and within-hospital racial disparities in treatment

Mortality among surgeons in the United States

Carbon 'offsets' aren't working. Here's a way to improve nature-based climate solutions

Preserving and promoting clinical trial representativeness

Study reveals mixed impact of state e-cigarette flavor bans on tobacco use

McMaster research offers promising new treatment for liver cancer

Most US adults have hearts older than their actual age. How old is yours?

JMIR Biomedical engineering invites submissions on voice phenotyping and vocal biomarkers

The metabolic dialogue between intratumoral microbes and cancer: implications for immunotherapy

Demographic data supporting FDA authorization of AI devices for Alzheimer disease and related dementias

How the common fungus Candida albicans colonizes the gut

How are coastal New Jersey communities communicating hazards of climate change?

[Press-News.org] FReD can help explain how a bee sees!