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| A bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) foraging on a flobot |
Plant-pollinator
interactions are strongly influenced by pollinator foraging behaviour, and
pollinators, particularly bumblebees and honeybees, are also widely used to
answer general questions about learning and foraging behaviour. Many pollinators can be trained to forage
from artificial flowers, making it possible to carry out tightly-controlled
experiments on their feeding behaviour.
However, refilling artificial flowers manually can require substantial
time, limiting the time available for pollinators to forage. In this paper, we describe a design for
inexpensive, robust artificial flowers that can refill themselves on
demand. We also summarize a wide variety
of alternative flower designs developed by other researchers.
Read the scientific publication in JPE.
