BEEhaviourLab: Acoustic and Locomotor Responses of Bees to Pesticides

Rachel Parkinson's dataset contains synchronized video and audio recordings of bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) exposed to the veterinary antiparasitic moxidectin. The data was collected using the automated BEEhaviourLab platform to enable high-throughput, multimodal quantification of locomotor activity and buzzing behavior. It demonstrates the use of acoustic phenotyping as a sensitive indicator of sublethal neurotoxic stress from pesticide exposure.

Use Cases

• Assessing dose-dependent behavioral disruption based on synchronized audio and video metrics.
• Comparing the sensitivity of acoustic versus video-based activity measures for neurotoxic stress.
• Developing new acoustic endpoints for ecological risk assessment studies.
• Validating automated behavioral phenotyping platforms for insect toxicology.

Strengths

• Contains synchronized multimodal data (video and audio) for high-throughput behavioral analysis.
• Demonstrates a novel application of acoustic buzzing as a sensitive indicator of sublethal pesticide stress.
• Data is openly available under a CC-BY-4.0 license, facilitating reuse.

Limitations

• Column names and a precise row count are not provided, limiting immediate understanding of data structure.
• The dataset appears to be a single experimental study, limiting generalizability across species and pesticides.
• Metadata completeness is medium; specific experimental parameters (e.g., exact doses, individual IDs) must be inferred from file contents.

Provenance

Source

Rachel Parkinson

Collection Method

Data gathered using the automated BEEhaviourLab platform, recording synchronized video and audio from insects without tagging.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-03-23.