On August 21, 2017, at 16 points along the path of last year’s total solar eclipse, tiny microphones—each about the size of a USB flash drive—captured a unique biological phenomenon. As Earth fell into complete darkness, the bees stopped buzzing, according to researchers at the University of Missouri
On August 21, 2017, at 16 points along the path of last year’s total solar eclipse, tiny microphones—each about the size of a USB flash drive—captured a unique biological phenomenon. As Earth fell into complete darkness, the bees stopped buzzing, according to researchers at the University of Missouri
“Getting dark in the middle of the day is not something that happens in a bee’s normal life.” said Candace Galen, professor of biological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science and lead researcher on the study. “It’s a behavioral miscue. Here darkness is a cue for night, that a bee is familiar with, but it’s coming at the wrong time of the day. Did they use it as a cue or not, even if it is completely out of context? What we found is yes, they do.”
Millions of Americans paused that August afternoon to watch the eclipse. As it passed overhead, MU researchers buzzed into action assisted by approximately 400 people—scientists, volunteers and elementary school students and teachers in Missouri, Idaho and Oregon, including over 200 elementary school students and teachers from Columbia Public Schools in Missouri—gathering audio data on the behavior of bees. At each of the 16 locations, the microphones were placed near bee-pollinated flowers and away from human-generated traffic.
Read more at University of Missouri-Columbia
Image: A bee pollinates a flower. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Geib, Appalachian State University)
