The project was aiming at generating transformative information on the sense of electroreception in air in terrestrial arthropods. For context, work served to identify the how and why of electroreception in bees and other arthropods, characterizing the the potential diversity in structures and functions that enable aerial electroreception. The project unveiled the diversity of this recently discovered sensory modality, in a broad context of interactions between animals, plants, and atmospheric electricity. In effect, beyond bees, the project has investigated aerial electroreception in other arthropod species, namely caterpillars from several moths and butterfly species, treehoppers, ticks and spiders. The generality of aerial electroreception has thus been addressed, with particular attention to behavioral and morphological adaptations, but also with respect to mechanisms of detection. Complementarily, theoretical work has been produced to explore the possibilities, and physical properties of aerial electroreception, considering both physical and biological sources of information.
A salient outcome resides in the fact that aerial electroreception is proposed to be a new sense, equivalent in adaptive value to vision, olfaction or hearing. We propose that it is present in many arthropod species, a proposition that has never been considered before. Our work has established that electroreception is possible outside the aquatic environment, where it has been scientifically studied for some 65 years. All objectives have been reached, as we have gathered empirical evidence supporting our original hypothesis and have developed a general theoretical framework that demonstrates biological and physical realizations and capabilities of aerial electroreception with multiphysical and mathematical models.
The outcomes of the ElectroBee project are likely to contribute to evaluating whether the electric ecology of natural environments is affected by human activity. With humans, the world has become very electrical. The presence of anthropogenic electric fields, magnetic fields, and electromagnetic fields in the environment is very novel in evolutionary terms. What we have shown is that electrostatics and electroreception is an old sense that predates the deployment of electricity by humans. This may have consequences for wildlife and humans alike, much like light and acoustic pollutions are increasingly recognized for their effects on natural systems and organisms. Global electrification generates alterations in the physical and sensory ecologies of organisms. Studying an evolved sense, as we have done, and characterising it in its natural condition can help appreciate the natural baseline, the state against which recent changes and potential disruptions for the health of ecosystems and their organisms can be measured. Using our theoretical framework we may be in a good position to evaluate rapidly changing situations, predict outcomes and future trajectories, assess environmental health, and consider realms of applications of mitigations and evidence-based norms of emissions. As such, studying electroreception in air, whilst uncovering an entire sensory world previously unknown, offers the possibility to develop analytical tools to measure anthropogenic effects on wildlife and humans.
