Resource tracking and costs of wing wear in foraging bumble bees

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This research has two themes, both featuring the feeding behaviour of bumble bees. First, it considers resource-tracking: how do competing bees distribute themselves across available flowers, and what are the consequences of this distribution?  At a fine scale, it examines how bees might use "snapshots" of nectar distribution in flowers to infer which plants are worth revisiting.  At a landscape scale, it examines how the reproductive success of plants that bees visit is affected by a particular distortion of resource-tracking caused by logging.  Second, it considers costs of wing wear to bumble bees.  We know that wing wear shortens bee lives, but we don't know how wing use causes wing wear.  We know that wing wear has minor effects on flight performance in simple habitats, but don't know how wing wear affects flight in the more complex ones that bees inhabit.  Finally, the influence of wing wear on resource tracking is examined with regard to two traits known to independently affect foraging behaviour: bee body size and density of plants.  Overall, this research uses foraging bumble bees to tell us something about how, in nature, consumers dynamically exploit resources, and wear out while so doing.