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Join us for the last CS WEDNESDAY NOON TALK for Spring 2012 on
Wednesday, May 2, in the ASH Lobby.<br>
<br>
"Flowers help bees cope with uncertainty: signal detection and the
function of floral complexity"<br>
<br>
By Anne Leonard, Ph.D., Darwin Fellow, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bio.umass.edu/oeb/darwin-fellows">http://www.bio.umass.edu/oeb/darwin-fellows</a><br>
<br>
ABSTRACT: Many organisms produce signals that span multiple sensory
modalities, despite the costs and risks of producing a complex and
conspicuous display. For example, plants attract pollinators with
floral displays comprised of both visual and olfactory stimuli. Yet,
the question of why plants produce multimodal flowers remains nearly
unexplored. We used Signal Detection Theory to test the hypothesis
that multimodal signals reduce pollinators’ uncertainty about
individual display components. Specifically, we asked if one signal,
odor, improved certainty about the value of another signal, color.
We trained bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) to discriminate between
rewarding and unrewarding flowers of slightly different hues (i.e.
model and mimic) in either the presence or absence of floral scent.
In a test phase, we offered these bees a wide range of floral hues
and recorded their ability to identify the hue rewarded during
training. We interpreted the extent to which bees’ preferences were
biased away from the unrewarding hue (“peak shift”) as an indicator
of uncertainty in color discrimination.<br>
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Our findings suggest that a flower’s scent focuses attention on its
hue, thereby facilitating learning and reducing uncertainty about
color. More broadly, we suggest that uncertainty reduction can play
a key role in the evolution of signal complexity.<br>
<br>
Anne Leonard completed her dissertation research on the role of
acoustic and chemical signals in cricket mate choice at the
University of California, Davis, with Ann Hedrick. Her interest in
complex signaling led to a postdoc at the University of Arizona with
Daniel Papaj, where her research on bumble bees addressed the
function of complex floral signals. As a Darwin Fellow at UMass,
Anne is pursuing her interests in signal complexity and
decision-making under conditions of uncertainty via collaborations
with Lynn Adler and Elizabeth Jakob.<br>
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In the ASH Lobby, a light lunch is available<br>
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<title>CBD to-do list updated and attached</title>
Paula Harmon, Administrative Assistant <br>
<div class="moz-signature"><small> School of Cognitive Science <br>
Hampshire College<br>
893 West Street Amherst, MA 01002 <br>
phone: 413.559.5502 <br>
fax: 413.559.5438 <br>
<a href="http://cs.hampshire.edu">http://cs.hampshire.edu</a></small>
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