Embargo expired: 12/8/2011 2:00 PM EST Source Newsroom: Cornell
University Newswise — Swarms of bees and brains made up of
neurons make decisions using strikingly similar mechanisms, says
a new study in the Dec. 9 issue of Science. In previous work,
Cornell University biologist Thomas Seeley clarified how scout
bees in a honeybee swarm perform “waggle dances” to prompt other
scout bees to inspect a promising site that has been found. In
the new study, Seeley, a professor of neurobiology and behavior,
reports with five colleagues in the United States and the United
Kingdom that scout bees also use inhibitory “stop signals” – a
short buzz delivered with a head butt to the dancer – to inhibit
the waggle dances produced by scouts advertising competing
sites. The strength of the inhibition produced by each group of
scouts is proportional to the group’s size. This inhibitory
signaling helps ensure that only one of the sites is chosen.
This is especially important for reaching a decision when two
sites are equally g