Using radio frequency identification and locomotor activity monitoring to assess sleep, locomotor, and foraging rhythmicity in bumblebees.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Tasman K
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8209741 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundAccurate estimates of movement behavior and distances travelled by animals are difficult to obtain, especially for small-bodied insects where transmitter weights have prevented the use of radio-tracking.Methodology/principal findingsHere, we report the first successful use of micro radio telemetry to track flight distances and space use of bumblebees. Using ground surveys and Cessna overflights in a Central European rural landscape mosaic we obtained maximum flight distances of 2.5 km, 1.9 km and 1.3 km for Bombus terrestris (workers), Bombus ruderatus (worker), and Bombus hortorum (young queens), respectively. Bumblebee individuals used large areas (0.25-43.53 ha) within one or a few days. Habitat analyses of one B. hortorum queen at the landscape scale indicated that gardens within villages were used more often than expected from habitat availability. Detailed movement trajectories of this individual revealed that prominent landscape structures (e.g. trees) and flower patches were repeatedly visited. However, we also observed long (i.e. >45 min) resting periods between flights (B. hortorum) and differences in flower-handling between bumblebees with and without transmitters (B. terrestris) suggesting that the current weight of transmitters (200 mg) may still impose significant energetic costs on the insects.Conclusions/significanceSpatio-temporal movements of bumblebees can now be tracked with telemetry methods. Our measured flight distances exceed many previous estimates of bumblebee foraging ranges and suggest that travelling long distances to food resources may be common. However, even the smallest currently available transmitters still appear to compromise flower handling performance and cause an increase in resting behavior of bees. Future reductions of transmitter mass and size could open up new avenues for quantifying landscape-scale space use of insect pollinators and could provide novel insights into the behavior and requirements of bumblebees during critical life stages, e.g. when searching for mates, nest locations or hibernation sites.
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Project description:Automated animal monitoring via radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology allows efficient and extensive data sampling of individual activity levels and is therefore commonly used for ecological research. However, processing RFID data is still a largely unresolved problem, which potentially leads to inaccurate estimates for behavioral activity. One of the major challenges during data processing is to isolate independent behavioral actions from a set of superfluous, nonindependent detections. As a case study, individual blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) were simultaneously monitored during reproduction with both video recordings and RFID technology. We demonstrated how RFID data can be processed based on the time spent in- and outside a nest box. We then validated the number and timing of nest visits obtained from the processed RFID dataset by calibration against video recordings. The video observations revealed a limited overlap between the time spent in- and outside the nest box, with the least overlap at 23 s for both sexes. We then isolated exact arrival times from redundant RFID registrations by erasing all successive registrations within 23 s after the preceding registration. After aligning the processed RFID data with the corresponding video recordings, we observed a high accuracy in three behavioral estimates of parental care (individual nest visit rates, within-pair alternation and synchronization of nest visits). We provide a clear guideline for future studies that aim to implement RFID technology in their research. We argue that our suggested RFID data processing procedure improves the precision of behavioral estimates, despite some inevitable drawbacks inherent to the technology. Our method is useful, not only for other cavity breeding birds, but for a wide range of (in)vertebrate species that are large enough to be fitted with a tag and that regularly pass near or through a fixed antenna.
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Project description:Widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides, such as imidacloprid, is often associated with diminishing populations of bees; this loss of pollinators presents a concern for food security and may cause unpredictable changes in ecological networks. However, little is known about the potential behavioural mechanisms behind the neonicotinoid-associated pollinator decline. We quantified the effects of low-dose (1 ppb) imidacloprid exposure on the foraging behaviour of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris). Individual bumblebees were released into a flight arena containing three patches of robotic flowers whose colour (yellow, orange, blue) indicated whether the flower delivered a reward (sugar solution). Exposure to imidacloprid had no significant effect on measures of bumblebee physical performance (such as flight speed) or learning (identifying rewarding flowers). However, pesticide-treated bumblebees had reduced foraging motivation compared with the control bumblebees, as they visited fewer robotic flowers, were slower to start foraging and did not visit all three flower colours as often. Neonicotinoid concentrations of 1 ppb, often reported in plant nectar near agricultural lands, can thus affect the foraging behaviour of bumblebees. Even without a notable impact on flight performance and learning, a reduction in foraging motivation could explain the poor performance of colonies of bumblebees exposed to neonicotinoids.
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Project description:BackgroundCounting the sponges is an important step in surgical procedures. A miscount may impact the patient's health, and it also has legal implications for the surgeon. This is an experimental study evaluating radio-frequency technology used in the perioperative period to identify surgical sponges left in the peritoneal cavity of swine.MethodsRadio-frequency labeled-disc identification tags were sewn into 40 surgical towels. Twenty labels had the ability to emit radio-frequency waves, and 20 labels were inert to radio-frequency identification. Twenty adult pigs that underwent laparotomy and randomly received two surgical sponges were scanned by a radio-frequency identification antenna.ResultsThis method presented a positive predictive value of 100% and 100% specificity and sensitivity, as all of the tagged surgical sponges were detected.ConclusionRadio-frequency identification has been proved to be a useful method for the identification of surgical sponges within the abdominal cavities of swine.
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Project description:PurposeTo inspect whether time management with radio frequency identification technology (RFID) reduces symptom onset-to-intravenous thrombolysis time (OTT) in acute ischemic stroke (AIS).MethodsIn the retrospective study, patients with AIS, transferred by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to Hunan Provincial People's Hospital between September 2019 to June 2022, divided into three groups, as traditional group, in-hospital RFID group and whole process RFID group. Baseline characteristics and time metrics were compared.ResultsAfter the whole emergency process applied with RFID time management, Door to intravenous thrombolysis time (DNT) was reduced from 125.00±43.16 min to 32.59±25.45 min (F = 121.857, p<0.001), and OTT was reduced from 235.53±57.27 min to 144.31±47.96 min (F = 10.377, p<0.001).ConclusionsTime management with RFID is effective in reducing OTT in AIS patients with thrombolysis treatment.
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