De Marco Rodrigo J
Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pb. II, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
J Exp Biol. 2006 Feb;209(Pt 3):421-32. doi: 10.1242/jeb.02025.
Apis mellifera bees perform dances to communicate the presence of desirable nectar sources. The regulation of these dances does not depend exclusively on properties of the nectar sources, but also upon certain stimuli derived from the foraging status of the colony as a whole; i.e. bees exploiting a source of constant profitability are more likely to dance when the colony's nectar intake rate is low. Based on these stimuli, individual bees tune their dances according to their colony's nectar influx without visiting alternative nectar sources. Division of labour, in addition, is a common feature in honeybees. Upon returning to the nest, successful foragers transfer the content of their crops to food-receivers by means of a common behaviour in social insects called trophallaxis, i.e. the transfer of liquid food by mouth. Martin Lindauer stated that a returned forager may sense the foraging status of its colony on the basis of the food transfer process by computing how quickly and eagerly the food-receivers unload its crop. This study focuses on the forager's experience during the food transfer process, its variability based on the colony's nectar influx, and the separate effects that the 'ease' and the 'eagerness' of the food-unloading have on the tuning of recruitment dances. Results indicate that foragers can rapidly sense variations in the colony's nectar influx, even when they experience no variation in the time interval between their return to the hive and the beginning of the food transfer. To accomplish this task they appear to use stimuli derived from the number of food-receivers, which enable them, in turn, to set their dance thresholds in relation to the nectar influx of their colony. The relevance of these findings is discussed in the context of communication and successful foraging.
意大利蜜蜂会通过跳舞来传达优质花蜜来源的信息。这些舞蹈的调控并非仅仅取决于花蜜来源的特性，还取决于整个蜂群觅食状态所产生的某些刺激；也就是说，当蜂群的花蜜采集率较低时，在持续产出效益的花蜜来源处采蜜的蜜蜂更有可能跳舞。基于这些刺激，个体蜜蜂无需去探寻其他花蜜来源，就能根据蜂群的花蜜流入量来调整自己的舞蹈。此外，分工是蜜蜂的一个常见特征。成功的觅食者回到蜂巢后，会通过一种社会性昆虫中常见的行为——交哺现象，即通过口对口传递液体食物，将嗉囊中的食物传递给食物接收者。马丁·林道尔指出，一只返回蜂巢的觅食者可能会通过计算食物接收者卸载其嗉囊食物的速度和急切程度，在食物传递过程中感知蜂群的觅食状态。本研究聚焦于觅食者在食物传递过程中的体验、其基于蜂群花蜜流入量的变化情况，以及食物卸载的“轻松程度”和“急切程度”对招募舞蹈调整的不同影响。结果表明，即使觅食者在回到蜂巢到开始食物传递的时间间隔上没有变化，它们也能迅速感知到蜂群花蜜流入量的变化。为了完成这项任务，它们似乎利用了来自食物接收者数量的刺激，这反过来又使它们能够根据蜂群的花蜜流入量来设定自己的舞蹈阈值。本文在信息交流和成功觅食的背景下讨论了这些发现的相关性。
