Simulation of floral specialization in bees

Abstract

In this study the nectar-gathering behavior of population of virtual bees is observed during visits to a field of simulated flowers over several hundred generations. The object of the study is to see if floral constancy evolves in the virtual bees. Floral constancy, observed in real bees, is the tendency to harvest nectar from only one type of flower. Flowers can only reproduce if they have received the proper pollen type from a visiting bee and so floral constancy is potentially of substantial importance to flowering plants. The virtual bees are evolved for 250 generations and evaluated for floral specialization. Floral specialization is defined as the average of the maximum visits to one flower type divided by the total number of flower visits. The initial hypothesis was that populations with flowers that had nearly equal amounts of nectar available to the bee would not specialize, but populations with flowers that had a large difference in obtainable nectar would specialize in the flower with more nectar available. Although populations with a choice between nearly equal returns stabilized at non-specialization, the other populations did not behave as expected. Populations that were given one flower with nearly no available nectar (less than 0.1000) and a flower with a larger amount of nectar available specialized in the flower with nectar, but when given a choice between flowers with any procurable amount of nectar greater than 0.1000, the populations eventually stabilized at non-specialization.