Neuroethology of bumblebees, specifically the neurobehavioral integration of odor processing of bumblebees

What we do, what’s our goal:

The goal of my research project is to determine the odor discrimination threshold for bumble bees. The odor discrimination threshold is the point of difference between two odors at which bumblebees can no longer tell the difference between the two odors. The example I use is of a popular internet meme that is a tweet of two similarly colored lipsticks side by side with the caption “my girlfriend wants me to believe that these are two different colors”. Clearly, there is a difference in the visual color discrimination threshold between the girlfriend and the boyfriend. It is the same with odors. At a certain point of similarity, bumblebees can not tell the difference between slightly different odors, but their discrimination threshold is much lower than a human’s. That is to say that they can detect differences in odors that we could never smell. This is important because human pollution and other human interference can minutely change the chemical makeup of floral and other odors, which could massively disrupt bumblebees’ ability to navigate towards odor sources. This could have impacts on crop pollination, bumblebee survival, etc. We need to know at what point of difference a bumblebee cannot discriminate between two different odors in order to predict how human pollution may impact their behavior.

Interested in learning more:

Feel free to email me at rayre@muhlenberg.edu or reach out to my faculty supervisor, Jordanna Sprayberry at jordannasprayberry@muhlenberg.edu.