Kulahci Ipek G, Dornhaus Anna, Papaj Daniel R
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, 1041 East Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2008 Apr 7;275(1636):797-802. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1176.
Multimodal signals are common in nature and have recently attracted considerable attention. Despite this interest, their function is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that multimodal signals improve decision making in receivers by influencing the speed and the accuracy of their decisions. We trained bumble-bees (Bombus impatiens) to discriminate between artificial flowers that differed either in one modality, visual (specifically, shape) or olfactory, or in two modalities, visual plus olfactory. Bees trained on multimodal flowers learned the rewarding flowers faster than those trained on flowers that differed only in the visual modality and, in extinction trials, visited the previously rewarded flowers at a higher rate than bees trained on unimodal flowers. Overall, bees showed a speed-accuracy trade-off; bees that made slower decisions achieved higher accuracy levels. Foraging on multimodal flowers did not affect the slope of the speed-accuracy relationship, but resulted in a higher intercept, indicating that multimodal signals were associated with consistently higher accuracy across range of decision speeds. Our results suggest that bees make more effective decisions when flowers signal in more than one modality, and confirm the importance of studying signal components together rather than separately.
多模态信号在自然界中很常见，最近引起了广泛关注。尽管人们对此很感兴趣，但对其功能却了解甚少。我们检验了这样一个假设，即多模态信号通过影响接收者决策的速度和准确性来改善其决策。我们训练了熊蜂（熊蜂属）来区分人工花，这些人工花在一种模态上有所不同，即视觉（具体来说是形状）或嗅觉，或者在两种模态上有所不同，即视觉加嗅觉。在多模态花上训练的蜜蜂比在仅在视觉模态上不同的花上训练的蜜蜂更快地学会了有奖励的花，并且在消退试验中，比在单模态花上训练的蜜蜂以更高的频率访问先前有奖励的花。总体而言，蜜蜂表现出速度与准确性的权衡；做出较慢决策的蜜蜂达到了更高的准确性水平。在多模态花上觅食并没有影响速度 - 准确性关系的斜率，但导致了更高的截距，这表明多模态信号在整个决策速度范围内都与始终更高的准确性相关。我们的结果表明，当花以多种模态发出信号时，蜜蜂能做出更有效的决策，并证实了一起研究信号成分而非单独研究的重要性。
