Walking bumblebees see faster

The behavioral state of an animal has profound effects on neuronal information processing. Locomotion changes the response properties of visual interneurons in the insect brain, but it is still unknown if it also alters the response properties of photoreceptors. Photoreceptor responses become faster at higher temperatures. It has therefore been suggested that thermoregulation in bees and other insects could improve temporal resolution in vision, but direct evidence for this idea has so far been missing. Here we compared electroretinograms (ERGs) from the compound eyes of tethered bumblebees that were either sitting still or were walking on an air supported ball. We found that the visual processing speed strongly increased when the bumblebees were walking. By monitoring the bumblebees’ eye temperature during our recordings, we saw that the increase in response speed was in synchrony with a rise of the eye temperature. By artificially heating the bee’s head, we show that the walking induced temperature increase of the visual system is sufficient to explain the rise in processing speed. We also show that walking accelerates the visual system to the equivalent of a 14-fold increase in light intensity. We conclude that the walking-induced rise in temperature accelerates the processing of visual information in bumblebees, which is an ideal strategy to process the increased information flow during locomotion.