Colour visual processing by honeybees: solutions for decision making in complex environments

The honeybee brain contains 0.01% of the number of cells found in the human brain. Yet bees are able to reliably process colour information in complex visual environments, where factors such as the type of illumination and shadows constantly change. We will study the mechanisms bees use to process colour information, and the implications of this processing for the pollination of economically and environmentally important plants. The project will explore whether honeybee vision can suggest novel solutions for colour processing in dynamic environments, which may become useful for programming robots, and how changes in environmental factors influence pollinator-plant relationships.