C. Charlotte Buchanan

arXiv2026

Broad presence of ferromagnetism in bees and relationship to phylogeny, natural history, and sociality

Scientists have long been fascinated by magnetoreception, the innate capacity of many animals to sense and use the Earth's magnetic field for navigation. In eusocial insects like honey bees, magnetoreception has been linked to communication and foraging. However, little is known about magnetoreception's phylogenetic patterns and relationship to species traits and natural history. Here, we demonstrate that putative magnetoreception based on ferromagnetic particles is widespread across a diversity of bee species (72 out of 96 species tested), with no phylogenetic signal. We also detected such putative magnetoreception in non-bee outgroups, suggesting this magnetic capacity predates the evolution of the Anthophila. While magnetic signals were found across a diversity of life history traits, the strength of the magnetic signal varied within and between species, and increased with body size and social behavior.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2026

A New Layered Kagome Strip Structure Na2Co3(AsO4)2(OH)2: Static and Dynamic Magnetic Properties

One-dimensional kagome strip chains share much of the same frustrated structural motif as two-dimensional kagome antiferromagnets, making them valuable for deepening our understanding of kagome lattice magnetism. In this paper, we report the hydrothermal synthesis and detailed structural and property characterization of Na2Co3(AsO4)2(OH)2, a striped kagome system. The crystal structure was characterized using single crystal X-ray diffraction, which reveals that Na2Co3(AsO4)2(OH)2 crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system C2/m. The structure features a one-dimensional kagome strip lattice built from Co2+ ions and undergoes an antiferromagnetic transition at TN = 14 K. The magnetic ground state at zero field was characterized using neutron powder diffraction. Below the magnetic transition, Na2Co3(AsO4)2(OH)2 orders into an antiferromagnetic structure with a k-vector (0.5, 0.5, 0.5). In the proposed model, the Co1 moment is predominantly confined to the ac-plane while the Co2 moment is primarily aligned along the b-axis. Two flat bands were observed in the inelastic neutron spectra below the magnetic transition at 5 and 10 meV. Inelastic neutron spectra were modeled with a Heisenberg Hamiltonian including three nearest-neighbor exchange interactions (J1, J2, J3) and strong single-ion anisotropy to stabilize the observed magnetic structure. Our study highlights the complexity of the Co2+-based kagome strip magnetic lattice compound Na2Co3(AsO4)2(OH)2, which provides an excellent platform to broaden our understanding of the frustrated kagome magnetic lattice space.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗