Fukushima Insects Tested for Cognition
6 hours ago
- #cognition
- #radiation
- #pollinators
- Bees and hornets possess cognitive skills like color recognition and spatial navigation, which can be impaired by environmental pollutants.
- Researchers Olivier Armant and Mathieu Lihoreau investigate the effects of ionizing radiation on pollinators, inspired by studies in Chernobyl and Fukushima.
- An automated system developed by Lihoreau's team assesses cognitive performance in bees, detecting subtle neurotoxic effects from pesticides or radiation.
- Bees with cognitive disturbances forage indiscriminately, disrupting pollination and ecosystem balance.
- Field studies in Fukushima used QR-coded bees in Y-maze tests to measure learning abilities under radiation exposure.
- Giant hornets, key predators in the food chain, were manually tested due to their size and local prevalence.
- Preliminary findings suggest a decline in insect cognition in contaminated areas, though a direct causal link to radiation is not yet confirmed.