title: Error in the honeybee waggle dance improves foraging flexibility.
abstract: The honeybee waggle dance communicates the location of profitable food sources, usually with a certain degree of error in the directional information ranging from 10-15° at the lower margin. We simulated one-day colonial foraging to address the biological significance of information error in the waggle dance. When the error was 30° or larger, the waggle dance was not beneficial. If the error was 15°, the waggle dance was beneficial when the food sources were scarce. When the error was 10° or smaller, the waggle dance was beneficial under all the conditions tested. Our simulation also showed that precise information (0-5° error) yielded great success in finding feeders, but also caused failures at finding new feeders, i.e., a high-risk high-return strategy. The observation that actual bees perform the waggle dance with an error of 10-15° might reflect, at least in part, the maintenance of a successful yet risky foraging trade-off.
authors.affiliation: Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, 1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryuichi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Okada
authors.affiliation: School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan.
authors.forename: Hidetoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ikeno
authors.affiliation: School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshifumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.affiliation: School of Human Science and Environment, University of Hyogo, 1-1-12 Shinzaike-Honcho, Himeji, Hyogo 670-0092, Japan.
authors.forename: Mizue
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ohashi
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 12, Nishi 7, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0812, Japan.
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aonuma
authors.affiliation: Kagawa School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, 1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan.
authors.forename: Etsuro
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ito
mesh_terms: D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D001516:Bees / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003615:Dancing / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D006702:Homing Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*