Magnetoreception in Hymenoptera: importance for navigation
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REVIEW
Magnetoreception in Hymenoptera: importance for navigation Pauline N. Fleischmann1 · Robin Grob1 · Wolfgang Rössler1 Received: 17 July 2020 / Revised: 8 September 2020 / Accepted: 12 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The use of information provided by the geomagnetic field (GMF) for navigation is widespread across the animal kingdom. At the same time, the magnetic sense is one of the least understood senses. Here, we review evidence for magnetoreception in Hymenoptera. We focus on experiments aiming to shed light on the role of the GMF for navigation. Both honeybees and desert ants are well-studied experimental models for navigation, and both use the GMF for specific navigational tasks under certain conditions. Cataglyphis desert ants use the GMF as a compass cue for path integration during their initial learning walks to align their gaze directions towards the nest entrance. This represents the first example for the use of the GMF in an insect species for a genuine navigational task under natural conditions and with all other navigational cues available. We argue that the recently described magnetic compass in Cataglyphis opens up a new integrative approach to understand the mechanisms underlying magnetoreception in Hymenoptera on different biological levels. Keywords Active sensing · Cataglpyhis desert ants · Honeybees · Learning walks · Magnetic compass · Path integration
Introduction Navigation by means of the earth’s magnetic field (or geomagnetic field, GMF) is one of the most impressive behavioral phenomena in the animal kingdom. Since, from a human perspective, introspection of the magnetic sense is lacking, the magnetic sense is the most difficult to comprehend from a cognitive perspective. This might be one reason why despite substantial research efforts—from pure observation via experimental manipulations and theoretical reflections— until now neither the location of the magnetic receptors nor the neuronal mechanisms underlying magnetoreception have been identified in any species and many aspects are controversial (Nordmann et al. 2017). Since the first description of the existence of a magnetic compass in migratory birds in the second half of the twentieth century (Merkel and Wiltschko 1965), many more animal species have turned out to be magneto-sensitive, including many arthropods (for a review: Vacha 2017).
* Pauline N. Fleischmann pauline.fleischmann@uni‑wuerzburg.de 1
Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Zoology II), Biozentrum, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany
Already starting in the 1960s, less well-known, elegant experiments were performed with honeybees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis mellifera), indicating that social insects belonging to the Hymenoptera can sense the GMF (Lindauer and Martin 1968). Since then many further experiments on hymenopteran insect species tried to shed light on the phenomenon of magnetoreception at different biological levels. In this position paper, we aim to compile and integrate the research efforts and pro
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