Precision vision: hyperacuity in bee flower detection and its effects on the evolution of plant signalling

ongoing

The spatial resolution of insect eyes has historically been regarded as implausibly poor. Considering only the static optic apparatus of the compound eye, many scholars thought that insects could only see as many “pixels” as the eye had ommatidial lenses – depending on species, some dozen to a few thousand. If true, this would render insects virtually blind to many fine-grained biological signals supposedly directed at them, such as the intricate patterns on many flowers. However, the postdoctoral researcher discovered in field experiments that bees’ ability in detecting and identifying flowers from a distance far exceeds these theoretical limits. Correspondingly, recent breakthroughs in visual physiology indicate that active-sensing strategies, scanning algorithms and photoreceptor movements can render insect vision an order of magnitude sharper than the optical apparatus suggests. For the first time, we explore such hyperacuity in a real-life setting: the detection and identification of floral colour patterns by pollinating bees, using state-of-the-art laboratory experiments of hyperacuity. The ecological validity will be tested using the colour patterns of iconic food-deceptive orchids and other conspicuously-patterned flowers. This interdisciplinary approach, linking the fellow’s expertise in wildflower pollination with the host’s track record in insect sensory biology, makes use of cutting-edge methodologies such as lab-based psychophysics experiments, AI based-analyses of insect flight, radar-tracking and motion-sensitive cameras at wildflowers to unravel the enigma of why flowers exhibit the striking fine-grained patterns they often do. The project will generate a major step change in our understanding of biological signalling and interspecies communication, unveiling how active sensing can generate hyperacute vision, its benefits in the economy of nature, and explaining the evolution and diversity of floral colour patterns.