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The majority of angiosperms require animal pollination for reproduction, and insects are the dominant group of animal pollinators. Bees are considered one of the most important and abundant insect pollinators. Research into bee behaviour and foraging decisions has typically centred on managed eusocial bee species, including Apis mellifera and Bombus terrestris. Non-eusocial bees are understudied with respect to foraging strategies and decision making, such as flower preferences. Understanding whether there are fundamental foraging strategies and preferences that are features of insect groups can provide key insights into the evolution of flower–pollinator co-evolution. In the current study, Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) lanarium and Lasioglossum (Parasphecodes) sp., two native Australian generalist halictid bees, were tested for flower shape preferences between native insect-pollinated and bird-pollinated flowers. Each bee was presented with achromatic images of either insect-pollinated or bird-pollinated flowers in a circular arena. Both native bee species demonstrated a significant preference for images of insect-pollinated flowers. These preferences are similar to those found in A. mellifera, suggesting that flower shape preference may be a deep-rooted evolutionary occurrence within bees. With growing interest in the sensory capabilities of non-eusocial bees as alternative pollinators, the current study also provides a valuable framework for further behavioural testing of such species.
Scarlett R. Howard; Kit Prendergast; Matthew R. E. Symonds; Mani Shrestha; Adrian G. Dyer. Spontaneous choices for insect-pollinated flower shapes by wild non-eusocial halictid bees. Journal of Experimental Biology 2021, 224, 1 .
AMA StyleScarlett R. Howard, Kit Prendergast, Matthew R. E. Symonds, Mani Shrestha, Adrian G. Dyer. Spontaneous choices for insect-pollinated flower shapes by wild non-eusocial halictid bees. Journal of Experimental Biology. 2021; 224 (16):1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleScarlett R. Howard; Kit Prendergast; Matthew R. E. Symonds; Mani Shrestha; Adrian G. Dyer. 2021. "Spontaneous choices for insect-pollinated flower shapes by wild non-eusocial halictid bees." Journal of Experimental Biology 224, no. 16: 1.
Colour signalling by flowers appears to be the main plant-pollinator communication system observed across many diverse species and locations worldwide. Bees are considered one of the most important insect pollinators; however, native non-eusocial bees are often understudied compared to managed eusocial species, such as honeybees and bumblebees. Here, we tested two species of native Australian non-eusocial halictid bees on their colour preferences for seven different broadband colours with bee-colour-space dominant wavelengths ranging from 385 to 560 nm and a neutral grey control. Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) lanarium demonstrated preferences for a UV-absorbing white (455 nm) and a yellow (560 nm) stimulus. Lasioglossum (Parasphecodes) sp. showed no colour preferences. Subsequent analyses showed that green contrast and spectral purity had a significant positive relationship with the number of visits by L. lanarium to stimuli. Colour preferences were consistent with other bee species and may be phylogenetically conserved and linked to how trichromatic bees processes visual information, although the relative dearth of empirical evidence on different bee species currently makes it difficult to dissect mechanisms. Past studies and our current results suggest that both innate and environmental factors might both be at play in mediating bee colour preferences.
Scarlett R. Howard; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer. Comparative psychophysics of colour preferences in two species of non-eusocial Australian native halictid bees. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 2021, 1 -10.
AMA StyleScarlett R. Howard, Jair E. Garcia, Adrian G. Dyer. Comparative psychophysics of colour preferences in two species of non-eusocial Australian native halictid bees. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. 2021; ():1-10.
Chicago/Turabian StyleScarlett R. Howard; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer. 2021. "Comparative psychophysics of colour preferences in two species of non-eusocial Australian native halictid bees." Journal of Comparative Physiology A , no. : 1-10.
One of the joys of botanists, gardeners, photographers and the general public is that flower displays can present a dizzying array of patterned colours. Whilst such displays are often enthralling to human observers with our blue-, green- and red-sensitive trichromatic vision (Fig. 1A), humans are not the biological agent that promoted the evolution of such colour complexity (Dyer et al., 2021), and thus flowers may have very different colours and patterns when considering pollinator vision (Fig. 1B, C). In the past two decades, botanists have thus shifted from describing floral colours based on human visual comparisons of samples using reference colour charts, to embrace the use of spectrometers to obtain an observer-independent spectral signature describing colour information (van der Kooi et al., 2019). These techniques have shed light on the complexities of plant community assembly by considering competition or facilitation to attract animal visitors as they perceive the world (Kemp et al., 2019; Garcia et al., 2020). Whilst spectrometers remain the gold standard for the precise quantitative appraisal of flower colours, this method remains limited to point measurements of small areas. This limitation makes it challenging to obtain a holistic view of the complex flower patterns that an animal observer might perceive when foraging.
Jair E Garcia; Adrian G Dyer. False colour photography reveals the complexity of flower signalling. A Commentary on: ‘A bee’s eye view of remarkable floral colour patterns in the Southwest Australian biodiversity hotspot revealed by false colour photography’. Annals of Botany 2021, 1 .
AMA StyleJair E Garcia, Adrian G Dyer. False colour photography reveals the complexity of flower signalling. A Commentary on: ‘A bee’s eye view of remarkable floral colour patterns in the Southwest Australian biodiversity hotspot revealed by false colour photography’. Annals of Botany. 2021; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJair E Garcia; Adrian G Dyer. 2021. "False colour photography reveals the complexity of flower signalling. A Commentary on: ‘A bee’s eye view of remarkable floral colour patterns in the Southwest Australian biodiversity hotspot revealed by false colour photography’." Annals of Botany , no. : 1.
There is increasing interest in developing urban design principles that incorporate good ecological management. Research on understanding the distribution and role of beneficial pollinating insects, in particular, is changing our view of the ecological value of cities. With the rapid expansion of the built environment comes a need to understand how insects may be affected in extensive urban areas. We therefore investigated insect pollinator capture rates in a rapidly growing and densely urbanized city (Melbourne, Australia). We identified a remnant native habitat contained within the expansive urban boundary, and established study sites at two nearby populated urban areas. We employed standard pan trap sampling techniques to passively sample insect orders in the different environments. Our results show that, even though the types of taxonomic groups of insects captured are comparable between locations, important pollinators like bees and hoverflies were more frequently captured in the remnant native habitat. By contrast, beetles (Coleoptera) and butterflies/moths (Lepidoptera) were more frequently observed in the urban residential regions. Our results suggest that the maintenance of native habitat zones within cities is likely to be valuable for the conservation of bees and the ecosystem services they provide.
Mani Shrestha; Jair Garcia; Freya Thomas; Scarlett Howard; Justin Chua; Thomas Tscheulin; Alan Dorin; Anders Nielsen; Adrian Dyer. Insects in the City: Does Remnant Native Habitat Influence Insect Order Distributions? Diversity 2021, 13, 148 .
AMA StyleMani Shrestha, Jair Garcia, Freya Thomas, Scarlett Howard, Justin Chua, Thomas Tscheulin, Alan Dorin, Anders Nielsen, Adrian Dyer. Insects in the City: Does Remnant Native Habitat Influence Insect Order Distributions? Diversity. 2021; 13 (4):148.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMani Shrestha; Jair Garcia; Freya Thomas; Scarlett Howard; Justin Chua; Thomas Tscheulin; Alan Dorin; Anders Nielsen; Adrian Dyer. 2021. "Insects in the City: Does Remnant Native Habitat Influence Insect Order Distributions?" Diversity 13, no. 4: 148.
Monitoring animals in their natural habitat is essential for advancement of animal behavioural studies, especially in pollination studies. Non-invasive techniques are preferred for these purposes as they reduce opportunities for research apparatus to interfere with behaviour. One potentially valuable approach is image-based tracking. However, the complexity of tracking unmarked wild animals using video is challenging in uncontrolled outdoor environments. Out-of-the-box algorithms currently present several problems in this context that can compromise accuracy, especially in cases of occlusion in a 3D environment. To address the issue, we present a novel hybrid detection and tracking algorithm to monitor unmarked insects outdoors. Our software can detect an insect, identify when a tracked insect becomes occluded from view and when it re-emerges, determine when an insect exits the camera field of view, and our software assembles a series of insect locations into a coherent trajectory. The insect detecting component of the software uses background subtraction and deep learning-based detection together to accurately and efficiently locate the insect among a cluster of wildflowers. We applied our method to track honeybees foraging outdoors using a new dataset that includes complex background detail, wind-blown foliage, and insects moving into and out of occlusion beneath leaves and among three-dimensional plant structures. We evaluated our software against human observations and previous techniques. It tracked honeybees at a rate of 86.6% on our dataset, 43% higher than the computationally more expensive, standalone deep learning model YOLOv2. We illustrate the value of our approach to quantify fine-scale foraging of honeybees. The ability to track unmarked insect pollinators in this way will help researchers better understand pollination ecology. The increased efficiency of our hybrid approach paves the way for the application of deep learning-based techniques to animal tracking in real-time using low-powered devices suitable for continuous monitoring.
Malika Nisal Ratnayake; Adrian G. Dyer; Alan Dorin. Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring. PLOS ONE 2021, 16, e0239504 .
AMA StyleMalika Nisal Ratnayake, Adrian G. Dyer, Alan Dorin. Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring. PLOS ONE. 2021; 16 (2):e0239504.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMalika Nisal Ratnayake; Adrian G. Dyer; Alan Dorin. 2021. "Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring." PLOS ONE 16, no. 2: e0239504.
SummaryA new study finds that human collecting may have driven the evolution of background-matching camouflage in an alpine medicinal plant.
Adrian G. Dyer; Jair E. Garcia. Plant Camouflage: Fade to Grey. Current Biology 2021, 31, R78 -R80.
AMA StyleAdrian G. Dyer, Jair E. Garcia. Plant Camouflage: Fade to Grey. Current Biology. 2021; 31 (2):R78-R80.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAdrian G. Dyer; Jair E. Garcia. 2021. "Plant Camouflage: Fade to Grey." Current Biology 31, no. 2: R78-R80.
Heterospecific pollen transfer by insect pollinators has the potential to drive inter-species competition between flowering plants. This phenomenon may newly arise in a region if insect pollinator or flowering plant populations change. An agent-based simulation is presented to assess the potential impact of heterospecific pollen transfer by insects on two co-flowering plant species within an environment consisting of a shared central region and species-specific refugia. Where heterospecific pollen asymmetrically suppressed the reproduction of one competitor, the pollen recipient was rapidly ousted from shared regions. If pollinators made deep, repeated, forays into and out of plant refugia, the clogged species was even unseated from its own refugium. When heterospecific pollen symmetrically suppressed plant reproduction, the same effects were observed, but with one or the other species excluded at random by the pollen clogging mediated interaction. We conclude that both symmetrical and asymmetrical heterospecific pollen transfer may be important elements of inter-species dynamics. In particular, our simulation shows pollen and pollinator visits lost to heterospecific flowers may not always be wasted from the producer’s standpoint. Instead, heterospecific pollen delivery may convey a competitive advantage even when the recipient has a refuge safe from direct invasion. This is possible because the pollen producer may use pollinators to clog a competitor’s stigmas in a refugium without entering into competition there for space, nutrients, light, pollinators, or other resources. Consequently, the evolution of plant signals to promote pollinator constancy may not be the only effective strategy in inter-species competition.
Alan Dorin; Tim Taylor; Martin Burd; Julian Garcia; Mani Shrestha; Adrian G. Dyer. Competition and pollen wars: simulations reveal the dynamics of competition mediated through heterospecific pollen transfer by non-flower constant insects. Theoretical Ecology 2020, 1 -12.
AMA StyleAlan Dorin, Tim Taylor, Martin Burd, Julian Garcia, Mani Shrestha, Adrian G. Dyer. Competition and pollen wars: simulations reveal the dynamics of competition mediated through heterospecific pollen transfer by non-flower constant insects. Theoretical Ecology. 2020; ():1-12.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlan Dorin; Tim Taylor; Martin Burd; Julian Garcia; Mani Shrestha; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Competition and pollen wars: simulations reveal the dynamics of competition mediated through heterospecific pollen transfer by non-flower constant insects." Theoretical Ecology , no. : 1-12.
Time is a fundamental dimension of all biological events and it is often assumed that animals have the capacity to track the duration of experienced events (known as interval timing). Animals can potentially use temporal information as a cue during foraging, communication, predator avoidance, or navigation. Interval timing has been traditionally investigated in controlled laboratory conditions but its ecological relevance in natural environments remains unclear. While animals may time events in artificial and highly controlled conditions, they may not necessarily use temporal information in natural environments where they have access to other cues that may have more relevance than temporal information. Herein we critically evaluate the ecological contexts where interval timing has been suggested to provide adaptive value for animals. We further discuss attributes of interval timing that are rarely considered in controlled laboratory studies. Finally, we encourage consideration of ecological relevance when designing future interval‐timing studies and propose future directions for such experiments.
Leslie Ng; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer; Devi Stuart‐Fox. The ecological significance of time sense in animals. Biological Reviews 2020, 96, 526 -540.
AMA StyleLeslie Ng, Jair E. Garcia, Adrian G. Dyer, Devi Stuart‐Fox. The ecological significance of time sense in animals. Biological Reviews. 2020; 96 (2):526-540.
Chicago/Turabian StyleLeslie Ng; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer; Devi Stuart‐Fox. 2020. "The ecological significance of time sense in animals." Biological Reviews 96, no. 2: 526-540.
Sleep inertia is a measurable decline in cognition some people experience upon and following awakening. However, a systematic review of the current up to date evidence of audio as a countermeasure has yet to be reported. Thus, to amend this gap in knowledge, the authors conducted this systematic review beginning with searches in three primary databases for studies published between the inception date of each journal and the year 2020. Search terms contained “Sleep Inertia” paired with: “Sound”; “Noise”; “Music”; “Alarm”; “Alarm Tone”; “Alarm Sound”; “Alarm Noise”; “Alarm Music”; “Alarm Clock”; “Fire Alarm”, and “Smoke Alarm”. From 341 study results, twelve were identified for inclusion against a priori conditions. A structured narrative synthesis approach generated three key auditory stimulus themes-(i) Noise, (ii) Emergency tone sequences; Voice Alarms and Hybrids, and (iii) Music. Across themes, participants have been assessed in two situational categories: emergency, and non-emergency awakenings. The results indicate that for children awakening in emergency conditions, a low pitch alarm or voice warnings appear to be more effective in counteracting the effects of sleep inertia than alarms with higher frequencies. For adults abruptly awakened, there is insufficient evidence to support firm conclusions regarding alarm types and voice signals. Positive results have been found in non-emergency awakenings for musical treatments in adults who preferred popular music, and alarms with melodic qualities. The results observed reflect the potential for sound, voice, and musical treatments to counteract sleep inertia post-awakening, and emphasize the requirements for further research in this domain.
Stuart J. McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. Alarm Tones, Voice Warnings, and Musical Treatments: A Systematic Review of Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia in Abrupt and Casual Awakenings. Clocks & Sleep 2020, 2, 416 -433.
AMA StyleStuart J. McFarlane, Jair E. Garcia, Darrin S. Verhagen, Adrian G. Dyer. Alarm Tones, Voice Warnings, and Musical Treatments: A Systematic Review of Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia in Abrupt and Casual Awakenings. Clocks & Sleep. 2020; 2 (4):416-433.
Chicago/Turabian StyleStuart J. McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Alarm Tones, Voice Warnings, and Musical Treatments: A Systematic Review of Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia in Abrupt and Casual Awakenings." Clocks & Sleep 2, no. 4: 416-433.
The ability of developing complex internal representations of the environment is considered a crucial antecedent to the emergence of humans’ higher cognitive functions. Yet it is an open question whether there is any fundamental difference in how humans and other good visual learner species naturally encode aspects of novel visual scenes. Using the same modified visual statistical learning paradigm and multielement stimuli, we investigated how human adults and honey bees (Apis mellifera) encode spontaneously, without dedicated training, various statistical properties of novel visual scenes. We found that, similarly to humans, honey bees automatically develop a complex internal representation of their visual environment that evolves with accumulation of new evidence even without a targeted reinforcement. In particular, with more experience, they shift from being sensitive to statistics of only elemental features of the scenes to relying on co-occurrence frequencies of elements while losing their sensitivity to elemental frequencies, but they never encode automatically the predictivity of elements. In contrast, humans involuntarily develop an internal representation that includes single-element and co-occurrence statistics, as well as information about the predictivity between elements. Importantly, capturing human visual learning results requires a probabilistic chunk-learning model, whereas a simple fragment-based memory-trace model that counts occurrence summary statistics is sufficient to replicate honey bees’ learning behavior. Thus, humans’ sophisticated encoding of sensory stimuli that provides intrinsic sensitivity to predictive information might be one of the fundamental prerequisites of developing higher cognitive abilities.
Aurore Avarguès-Weber; Valerie Finke; Márton Nagy; Tūnde Szabó; Daniele D’Amaro; Adrian G. Dyer; József Fiser. Different mechanisms underlie implicit visual statistical learning in honey bees and humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2020, 117, 25923 -25934.
AMA StyleAurore Avarguès-Weber, Valerie Finke, Márton Nagy, Tūnde Szabó, Daniele D’Amaro, Adrian G. Dyer, József Fiser. Different mechanisms underlie implicit visual statistical learning in honey bees and humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2020; 117 (41):25923-25934.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAurore Avarguès-Weber; Valerie Finke; Márton Nagy; Tūnde Szabó; Daniele D’Amaro; Adrian G. Dyer; József Fiser. 2020. "Different mechanisms underlie implicit visual statistical learning in honey bees and humans." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 41: 25923-25934.
Monitoring animals in their natural habitat is essential for advancement of animal behavioural studies, especially in pollination studies. Non-invasive techniques are preferred for these purposes as they reduce opportunities for research apparatus to interfere with behaviour. One potentially valuable approach is image-based tracking. However, the complexity of tracking unmarked wild animals using video is challenging in uncontrolled outdoor environments. Out-of-the-box algorithms currently present several problems in this context that can compromise accuracy, especially in cases of occlusion in a 3D environment. To address the issue, we present a novel hybrid detection and tracking algorithm to monitor unmarked insects outdoors. Our software can detect an insect, identify when a tracked insect becomes occluded from view and when it re-emerges, determine when an insect exits the camera field of view, and our software assembles a series of insect locations into a coherent trajectory. The insect detecting component of the software uses background subtraction and deep learning-based detection together to accurately and efficiently locate the insect among a cluster of wildflowers. We applied our method to track honeybees foraging outdoors using a new dataset that includes complex background detail, wind-blown foliage, and insects moving into and out of occlusion beneath leaves and among three-dimensional plant structures. We evaluated our software against human observations and previous techniques. It tracked honeybees at a rate of 86.6% on our dataset, 43% higher than the computationally more expensive, standalone deep learning model YOLOv2. We illustrate the value of our approach to quantify fine-scale foraging of honeybees. The ability to track unmarked insect pollinators in this way will help researchers better understand pollination ecology. The increased efficiency of our hybrid approach paves the way for the application of deep learning-based techniques to animal tracking in real-time using low-powered devices suitable for continuous monitoring.
Malika Nisal Ratnayake; Adrian G Dyer; Alan Dorin. Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring. 2020, 1 .
AMA StyleMalika Nisal Ratnayake, Adrian G Dyer, Alan Dorin. Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring. . 2020; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMalika Nisal Ratnayake; Adrian G Dyer; Alan Dorin. 2020. "Tracking individual honeybees among wildflower clusters with computer vision-facilitated pollinator monitoring." , no. : 1.
This article is a Commentary on Dalrymple et al. (2020), 228: 1972–1985.
Anne C. M. Verloop; Adrian G. Dyer; Casper J. Van Der Kooi. How biotic and abiotic effects colour flowers in a land Down Under. New Phytologist 2020, 228, 1701 -1703.
AMA StyleAnne C. M. Verloop, Adrian G. Dyer, Casper J. Van Der Kooi. How biotic and abiotic effects colour flowers in a land Down Under. New Phytologist. 2020; 228 (6):1701-1703.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAnne C. M. Verloop; Adrian G. Dyer; Casper J. Van Der Kooi. 2020. "How biotic and abiotic effects colour flowers in a land Down Under." New Phytologist 228, no. 6: 1701-1703.
Colour is an important signal that flowering plants use to attract insect pollinators like bees. Previous research in Germany has shown that nectar volume is higher for flower colours that are innately preferred by European bees, suggesting an important link between colour signals, bee preferences and floral rewards. In Australia, flower colour signals have evolved in parallel to the Northern hemisphere to enable easy discrimination and detection by the phylogenetically ancient trichromatic visual system of bees, and native Australian bees also possess similar innate colour preferences to European bees. We measured 59 spectral signatures from flowers present at two preserved native habitats in South Eastern Australia and tested whether there were any significant differences in the frequency of flowers presenting higher nectar rewards depending upon the colour category of the flower signals, as perceived by bees. We also tested if there was a significant correlation between chromatic contrast and the frequency of flowers presenting higher nectar rewards. For the entire sample, and for subsets excluding species in the Asteraceae and Orchidaceae, we found no significant difference among colour categories in the frequency of high nectar reward. This suggests that whilst such relationships between flower colour signals and nectar volume rewards have been observed at a field site in Germany, the effect is likely to be specific at a community level rather than a broad general principle that has resulted in the common signalling of bee flower colours around the world.
Mani Shrestha; Jair E. Garcia; Martin Burd; Adrian G. Dyer. Australian native flower colours: Does nectar reward drive bee pollinator flower preferences? PLOS ONE 2020, 15, e0226469 .
AMA StyleMani Shrestha, Jair E. Garcia, Martin Burd, Adrian G. Dyer. Australian native flower colours: Does nectar reward drive bee pollinator flower preferences? PLOS ONE. 2020; 15 (6):e0226469.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMani Shrestha; Jair E. Garcia; Martin Burd; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Australian native flower colours: Does nectar reward drive bee pollinator flower preferences?" PLOS ONE 15, no. 6: e0226469.
Sleep inertia is a decline in cognition one may experience upon and following awakening. A recent study revealed that an alarm sound perceived as melodic by participants displayed a significant relationship to reports of reductions in perceived sleep inertia. This current research builds on these findings by testing the effect melody and rhythm exhibit on sleep inertia for subjects awakening in their habitual environments. Two test Groups (A and B; N = 10 each) completed an online psychomotor experiment and questionnaire in two separate test sessions immediately following awakening from nocturnal sleep. Both groups responded to a control stimulus in the first session, while in the second session, Group A experienced a melodic treatment, and Group B a rhythmic treatment. The results show that the melodic treatment significantly decreased attentional lapses, false starts, and had a significantly improved psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) performance score than the control. There was no significant result for reaction time or response speed. Additionally, no significant difference was observed for all PVT metrics between the control–rhythmic conditions. The results from this analysis support melodies’ potential to counteract symptoms of sleep inertia by the observed increase in participant vigilance following waking from nocturnal sleep.
Stuart J. McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia: Exploring the Effect of Melody and Rhythm in an Ecological Context. Clocks & Sleep 2020, 2, 208 -224.
AMA StyleStuart J. McFarlane, Jair E. Garcia, Darrin S. Verhagen, Adrian G. Dyer. Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia: Exploring the Effect of Melody and Rhythm in an Ecological Context. Clocks & Sleep. 2020; 2 (2):208-224.
Chicago/Turabian StyleStuart J. McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia: Exploring the Effect of Melody and Rhythm in an Ecological Context." Clocks & Sleep 2, no. 2: 208-224.
Scarlett R. Howard; Aurore Avarguès-Weber; Jair E. Garcia; Andrew D. Greentree; Adrian G. Dyer. Reply to comment on Howard et al . (2019): ‘Nothing to dance about: unclear evidence for symbolic representations and numerical competence in honeybees'. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2020, 287, 20200095 .
AMA StyleScarlett R. Howard, Aurore Avarguès-Weber, Jair E. Garcia, Andrew D. Greentree, Adrian G. Dyer. Reply to comment on Howard et al . (2019): ‘Nothing to dance about: unclear evidence for symbolic representations and numerical competence in honeybees'. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2020; 287 (1925):20200095.
Chicago/Turabian StyleScarlett R. Howard; Aurore Avarguès-Weber; Jair E. Garcia; Andrew D. Greentree; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Reply to comment on Howard et al . (2019): ‘Nothing to dance about: unclear evidence for symbolic representations and numerical competence in honeybees'." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287, no. 1925: 20200095.
About one‐third of orchid species are thought to offer no floral reward and therefore to attract pollinators through deception. Statements of this idea are common in the botanical literature, but the empirical basis of the estimate is rarely mentioned. We traced citation pathways for the one‐third estimate in a sample of the literature and found that the paths lead to empirical foundations that are surprisingly narrow. Moreover, recent measurements have detected minute quantities of sugar available to insect visitors in some orchids thought to be rewardless, raising the possibility of a pollination strategy that is largely deceitful but different to absolute rewardlessness. The orchids are a well studied group and there is no doubt that rewardlessness is common in the family. However, greater empirical effort is needed to verify rewardlessness in orchids and to explore geographic and environmental variation in the proportion of rewardless species.
Mani Shrestha; Adrian G. Dyer; Alan Dorin; Zong‐Xin Ren; Martin Burd. Rewardlessness in orchids: how frequent and how rewardless? Plant Biology 2020, 22, 555 -561.
AMA StyleMani Shrestha, Adrian G. Dyer, Alan Dorin, Zong‐Xin Ren, Martin Burd. Rewardlessness in orchids: how frequent and how rewardless? Plant Biology. 2020; 22 (4):555-561.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMani Shrestha; Adrian G. Dyer; Alan Dorin; Zong‐Xin Ren; Martin Burd. 2020. "Rewardlessness in orchids: how frequent and how rewardless?" Plant Biology 22, no. 4: 555-561.
Sleep inertia is the potentially harmful decline in cognition that occurs upon and following awakening. Sound has been shown to counteract the negative symptoms of sleep inertia, with a recent study revealing that an alarm perceived as melodic by participants displayed a significant relationship to reports of reductions in perceived sleep inertia. This current research builds on these findings by specifically testing the effect melodic and rhythmic stimuli exhibit on sleep inertia for subjects awakening in their habitual environments. Two test Groups (A & B; N = 10 equally) completed an online psychomotor experiment and questionnaire in two separate test sessions immediately following awakening from nocturnal sleep epochs. Both groups responded to a Control stimulus in the first session, while in the second session, Group A experienced a Melodic treatment, and Group B the Rhythmic. The results show that the melodic treatment significantly decreased attentional Lapses, False Starts and had a significantly improved PVT Performance Score than the Control. There was no significant result for Reaction Time or Response Speed. Additionally, no significant difference was observed for all PVT metrics between the Control – Rhythmic conditions. The results support melodies potential to counteract symptoms of sleep inertia by the observed increase in participant vigilance following waking. Specifically, a melodically rhythmic contour is highlighted as a significant musical treatment noteworthy of consideration when designing alarm compositions for the reduction of sleep inertia. As auditory assisted awakening is a common within modern society, improvements in alarm sound design may have advantages in domestic and commercial settings.
Stuart James McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia: An Ecological Study Examining the Influence of Melody and Rhythm. 2020, 1 .
AMA StyleStuart James McFarlane, Jair E. Garcia, Darrin S. Verhagen, Adrian G. Dyer. Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia: An Ecological Study Examining the Influence of Melody and Rhythm. . 2020; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleStuart James McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Auditory Countermeasures for Sleep Inertia: An Ecological Study Examining the Influence of Melody and Rhythm." , no. : 1.
Sleep inertia is a potentially dangerous reduction in human alertness and occurs 0–4 hours after waking. The type of sound people set as their alarm for waking has been shown to reduce the effects of sleep inertia, however, the elemental musical factors that underpin these waking sounds and their relationships remain unclear. The goal of this research is to understand how a particular sound or music chosen to assist waking may counteract sleep inertia, and more specifically, what elements of these sounds may contribute to its reduction. Through an anonymous, self-report online questionnaire, fifty participants (N = 50) reported attributes of their preferred waking sound, their feeling towards the waking sound, and perceived sleep inertia after waking. This data enabled the analysis and comparison between these responses to identify statistically significant relationships. Our results did not return any significant association between sleep inertia and the reported waking sound type, nor the subject’s feeling towards their sound. However, the analysis did reveal that a sound which is ranked as melodic by participants shows a significant relationship to reports of reductions in perceived sleep inertia, and in contrast, sound rated as neutral (neither unmelodic nor melodic) returns a significant relationship to the reports of increases in perceived sleep inertia. Additionally, our secondary analysis revealed that a sound rated as melodic is considered to be more rhythmic than a melodically neutral interpretation. Together these findings raise questions regarding the impact melody and rhythm may hold with respect to sleep inertia intensity. Considering that the implementation of auditory assisted awakening is a common occurrence, the musical elements of a chosen waking sound may be an area to further interrogate with respect to counteracting sleep inertia.
Stuart McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. Alarm tones, music and their elements: Analysis of reported waking sounds to counteract sleep inertia. PLOS ONE 2020, 15, e0215788 .
AMA StyleStuart McFarlane, Jair E. Garcia, Darrin S. Verhagen, Adrian G. Dyer. Alarm tones, music and their elements: Analysis of reported waking sounds to counteract sleep inertia. PLOS ONE. 2020; 15 (1):e0215788.
Chicago/Turabian StyleStuart McFarlane; Jair E. Garcia; Darrin S. Verhagen; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Alarm tones, music and their elements: Analysis of reported waking sounds to counteract sleep inertia." PLOS ONE 15, no. 1: e0215788.
Honey bees (Apis mellifera Linnaeus) are known for their capacity to learn arbitrary relations between colours, odours, and even numbers. However, it is not known whether bees can use temporal signals as cueing stimuli in a similar way during symbolic delayed matching-to-sample tasks. Honey bees potentially process temporal signals during foraging activities, but the extent to which they can use such information is unclear. Here we investigated if free-flying honey bees could use either illumination colour, or illumination duration, as potential context-setting cues to enable their subsequent decisions for a symbolic delayed matching-to-sample task. We found that bees could use the changing colour context of the illumination to complete the subsequent spatial vision task at a level significant from chance expectation, but could not use the duration of either a 1s or 3s light as a cueing stimulus. These findings suggest that bees cannot use temporal information as a cueing stimulus as efficiently as other signals such as colour, and is consistent with previous field observations suggesting a limited interval timing capacity in honey bees.
Leslie Ng; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer. Use of temporal and colour cueing in a symbolic delayed matching task by honey bees. Journal of Experimental Biology 2020, 1 .
AMA StyleLeslie Ng, Jair E. Garcia, Adrian G. Dyer. Use of temporal and colour cueing in a symbolic delayed matching task by honey bees. Journal of Experimental Biology. 2020; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleLeslie Ng; Jair E. Garcia; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "Use of temporal and colour cueing in a symbolic delayed matching task by honey bees." Journal of Experimental Biology , no. : 1.
Scarlett R. Howard; Adrian G. Dyer. How to engage public support to protect overlooked species. Animal Sentience 2020, 4, 25 .
AMA StyleScarlett R. Howard, Adrian G. Dyer. How to engage public support to protect overlooked species. Animal Sentience. 2020; 4 (27):25.
Chicago/Turabian StyleScarlett R. Howard; Adrian G. Dyer. 2020. "How to engage public support to protect overlooked species." Animal Sentience 4, no. 27: 25.