Study Finds Insect Communication Relies on Both Environmental and Social Factors

Communication is one of the fundamental bases for interaction between living beings, present not only among human beings, but in various forms and manifestations in nature. Some films, such as Arrival , reflect on the difficulty and need to create bridges between different beings, and in the animal kingdom this occurs mainly to enable the exchange of information essential for survival, such as warning about predators, the search for food or reproduction.

Bioacoustics discoveries in the animal kingdom: elephants that name themselves and the sperm whale alphabet

Ronara Ferreira, a professor at the Institute of Psychology (IP) at the University of São Paulo, states that, in general, animal communication is a very diverse phenomenon and its functions and effects depend on the environmental and social context in which the species are inserted. Regarding insects, she mentions several different forms of communication, through chemical, visual, acoustic, vibrational, tactile signals or even the emission of light signals. “Chemical communication is one of the predominant means of communication for many species, through pheromones, which are chemical compounds released into the environment and detected by other members of the same species. They can be present in contexts such as mating, attracting sexual partners, marking trails, signaling danger and stress, or even signaling the presence of food,” she explains.

In addition to the release of volatile signals, the presence of chemical signals in the cuticle of social insects, such as ants, termites and bees, transmits information at different levels, which helps to regulate interactions within these social groups. The expert also explains that chemical communication, among others, is not exclusive, since many species of insects have different means and sometimes use them in combination — each means of communication helps to modulate the other, with each one generating a better response in a given context.

Other media

Mechanical or acoustic-vibrational communication, with audible components, is done through the production of vibrational signals, transmitted not as air waves, but by the substrate. Michael Hrncir, a professor at the Institute of Biosciences (IB) at USP, cites the case of the “dance of the bees”, in which the species Apis mellifera indicates to the members of the colony the location of a food source. “The problem is that inside the nest it is completely dark, that is, the other bees cannot see this dance, so they need mechanical stimuli, vibrations, mainly, and touch, to detect where the bee is dancing. Bees have large muscles inside their thorax, which are mainly responsible for the beating of their wings, and these muscles, in addition, can produce strong vibrations”, he explains.

Other species of social insects also produce this form of communication — but without the dance, unique to the Apinae group , which includes a smaller number of bees — such as stingless bees, which produce vibrations in the same way, but to transmit information about the quality of the food source. He also comments on ants, which produce a stridulation — a noise generated by the rubbing of parts of the body — by twisting part of the abdomen against part of the thorax.

Ronara also mentions visual communication, which perceives specific stimuli and positions, varying between different species or between the same species but in different contexts, in addition to tactile communication, used in contexts of proximity between one individual and another through physical touch, the use of antennae or other parts of the body to transmit information about the environment or to coordinate activities within the social group or between partners. In this sense, Hrncir comments on tandem running , a race in pairs between ants, in which one individual finds a certain resource and another ant joins in, running very close and touching the first as it runs, always remaining in contact.

“Each type of communication has a different function. The most important part is that they manage to produce the maximum possible number of offspring (reproduction) with resources in a more or less constant manner,” he states. A specific example among the different existing contexts is the communication between the queen bee and the workers, in which, in the absence of pheromones produced by the queen after her death, the workers detect this absence and begin the procedures for producing a new queen.

Studies on insect communications

Overall, the expert explains that studies of these communications can be important even for human society. “By observing bees within the colony, and this refers more to Apis mellifera , which has been studied more extensively, we humans can identify where the food source is, where the bee is collecting its food, and we can observe, film and analyze this. So, sometimes, this has ecological relevance,” he comments.

Furthermore, the analysis of these studies can also be used in plantations and crops, since in several cases, Apis mellifera is being used for crop pollination. In the case of stingless bees, the professor understands that the ecological advantage is more associated with the intensity with which they produce vibrations, in which, through them, human society can detect that, in the environment where they are located, there are valuable sources for the colony.