Advertisement
Table of Contents

September 2012

Cover

Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) wearing a radar transponder.
Issue Image

Pollinating bees must typically visit a large number of flowers before they can return to their nest with a filled honey-stomach. They are thus faced with a challenge equivalent to the familiar “Travelling Salesman Problem”—to link multiple locations with an efficient route that minimizes travel distance. Here, bees' strategies in route optimization are quantified by tracking individuals over long distances with harmonic radar. It turns out that bees initially follow tortuous paths while exploring their environment for new food locations, but rapidly discover food sources and link them with an optimal circuit, using a simple trial-and-error algorithm. See Lihoreau et al. (e1001392) in this issue.

Image Credit: Andrew Martin

Synopses

Understanding the Flight of the Bumblebee

Robin Meadows

PLOS Biology: published September 20, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001391

Related Articles

  1. Radar Tracking and Motion-Sensitive Cameras on Flowers Reveal the Development of Pollinator Multi-Destination Routes over Large Spatial Scales

IL-26 Kick-Starts Rheumatoid Arthritis

Caitlin Sedwick

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001398

Related Articles

  1. IL-26 Is Overexpressed in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Induces Proinflammatory Cytokine Production and Th17 Cell Generation

Unsolved Mystery

Revisiting an Old Riddle: What Determines Genetic Diversity Levels within Species?

Ellen M. Leffler, Kevin Bullaughey, Daniel R. Matute, Wynn K. Meyer, Laure Ségurel, Aarti Venkat, Peter Andolfatto, Molly Przeworski

PLOS Biology: published September 11, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001388

Primers

Inside the Mucosal Immune System

Jerry R. McGhee, Kohtaro Fujihashi

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001397

Related Articles

  1. Multi-Scale In Vivo Systems Analysis Reveals the Influence of Immune Cells on TNF-α-Induced Apoptosis in the Intestinal Epithelium

A New View of the Lethal Apoptotic Pore

Gorka Basañez, Lucian Soane, J. Marie Hardwick

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001399

Related Articles

  1. Bax Activation Initiates the Assembly of a Multimeric Catalyst that Facilitates Bax Pore Formation in Mitochondrial Outer Membranes

Community Page

Addressing HIV/AIDS in South African Classrooms

Lindsey Rabinowitz

PLOS Biology: published September 18, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001390

Research Articles

Radar Tracking and Motion-Sensitive Cameras on Flowers Reveal the Development of Pollinator Multi-Destination Routes over Large Spatial Scales

Mathieu Lihoreau, Nigel E. Raine, Andrew M. Reynolds, Ralph J. Stelzer, Ka S. Lim, Alan D. Smith, Juliet L. Osborne, Lars Chittka

PLOS Biology: published September 20, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001392

Related Articles

  1. Understanding the Flight of the Bumblebee

Smooth Muscle Tension Induces Invasive Remodeling of the Zebrafish Intestine

Christoph Seiler, Gangarao Davuluri, Joshua Abrams, Fitzroy J. Byfield, Paul A. Janmey, Michael Pack

PLOS Biology: published September 4, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001386

Independent Regulation of Basal Neurotransmitter Release Efficacy by Variable Ca2+ Influx and Bouton Size at Small Central Synapses

Yaroslav S. Ermolyuk, Felicity G. Alder, Christian Henneberger, Dmitri A. Rusakov, Dimitri M. Kullmann, Kirill E. Volynski

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001396

Multi-Scale In Vivo Systems Analysis Reveals the Influence of Immune Cells on TNF-α-Induced Apoptosis in the Intestinal Epithelium

Ken S. Lau, Virna Cortez-Retamozo, Sarah R. Philips, Mikael J. Pittet, Douglas A. Lauffenburger, Kevin M. Haigis

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001393

Related Articles

  1. Inside the Mucosal Immune System
  2. Correction: Multi-Scale In Vivo Systems Analysis Reveals the Influence of Immune Cells on TNF-α-Induced Apoptosis in the Intestinal Epithelium

IL-26 Is Overexpressed in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Induces Proinflammatory Cytokine Production and Th17 Cell Generation

Murielle Corvaisier, Yves Delneste, Henry Jeanvoine, Laurence Preisser, Simon Blanchard, Erwan Garo, Emmanuel Hoppe, Benjamin Barré, Maurice Audran, Béatrice Bouvard, Jean-Paul Saint-André, Pascale Jeannin

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001395

Related Articles

  1. IL-26 Kick-Starts Rheumatoid Arthritis
  2. Correction: IL-26 Is Overexpressed in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Induces Proinflammatory Cytokine Production and Th17 Cell Generation

3D-SIM Super Resolution Microscopy Reveals a Bead-Like Arrangement for FtsZ and the Division Machinery: Implications for Triggering Cytokinesis

Michael P. Strauss, Andrew T. F. Liew, Lynne Turnbull, Cynthia B. Whitchurch, Leigh G. Monahan, Elizabeth J. Harry

PLOS Biology: published September 11, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001389

Bax Activation Initiates the Assembly of a Multimeric Catalyst that Facilitates Bax Pore Formation in Mitochondrial Outer Membranes

Yulia Kushnareva, Alexander Y. Andreyev, Tomomi Kuwana, Donald D. Newmeyer

PLOS Biology: published September 25, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001394

Related Articles

  1. A New View of the Lethal Apoptotic Pore

Book Review%2FScience in the Media

What to Do When the Oceans Rise

Lauren-Kristine Pryzant, John F. Bruno

PLOS Biology: published September 4, 2012 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001387