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Fig. 2. Experimental layout and results to investigate the encoding of spatial information in the waggle dance. Individually marked bees were trained to forage on a feeder placed at the far end of a 6 m-long, 30 cm-wide and 30 cm-high tunnel. The tunnel's entrance was located 129 m away from the hive, and its walls and floor were decorated with a random visual texture (see Materials and methods for details). (A) Experimental arrangements with the tunnel oriented at 0° with respect to the direct line connecting its near end and the hive (h). The bees flew through the tunnel during their outbound flights (o_r) but not during their inbound flights (i_r). F_r and F_v correspond to the real and the virtual location of the feeder (open circles), respectively, whereas o_v and i_v correspond to the virtual outbound and inbound flights, respectively, as derived from the overestimated distance flown inside the tunnel (see Materials and methods). (B) Distribution of the individual mean directions signalled in the waggle dances recorded in the tunnel experiment described in A, mean vector direction µ=1.33°, r=0.99, P<0.001, n₁ (number of animals analysed)=22, n₂ (number of waggle-runs analysed)=406. The frequencies within 10° class ranges are shown as the areas of the dark wedges. The dark spoke and segment indicate µ and 95% confident interval, respectively. The grey and open arrowheads indicate the directions towards the real (F_r) and the virtual (F_v) feeders shown in A, respectively. (C) The flown distance (mean ± S.E.M.) indicated in the waggle dances recorded in the tunnel experiment described in A (d_s, striped bar), the distance to the virtual feeder (d_v, open bar, in this case equivalent to the indicated distance) and the real distance from the hive to the food site (d_r, grey bar). (D–F) Experimental arrangements and results as in A–C with the tunnel rotated 90° to the right. The distance flown inside the tunnel oriented at 0° (C) was used to compute the location to be encoded (F_v, direction; d_v, distance) if the global vector computed by path integration of the outbound flight provides the dancers with the spatial information encoded in the waggle dance. In E, µ=6.77°, r=0.98, P<0.001, n₁=10, n₂=147. (G–I) Experimental arrangements and results as in D–F with the tunnel rotated 90° to the left. In H, µ=356.1°, r=0.99, P<0.001, n₁=9, n₂=149. (J–L) Experimental arrangements and results as in G–I, obtained with experienced bees (see Materials and methods). In K, µ=333.99°, r=0.99, P<0.001, n₁=6, n₂=80. See Results for details on comparisons.

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