Mailleux Anne-Catherine, Deneubourg Jean-Louis, Detrain Claire
Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
C R Biol. 2009 May;332(5):500-6. doi: 10.1016/j.crvi.2008.10.005. Epub 2008 Dec 19.
The decision for a Lasius niger forager to lay a chemical trail and launch recruitment to a food source is governed by an internal individual threshold. The value of this threshold triggering chemical communication is not set by the maximal capacity of the crop. Actually, trail-laying ants are still able to drink additional food encountered on their homeward journey. The partial filling of the crop by trail-laying ants may be a means for the ants to shorten foraging trips and to speed up the information updating within the nest. Moreover, by partially filling their crop, foragers keep a potential for sampling resources and for tasting other encountered food sources.
黑褐蚁觅食者决定留下化学踪迹并发起对食物源的招募行为受个体内部阈值的控制。触发化学通讯的这个阈值并非由嗉囊的最大容量设定。实际上,留下踪迹的蚂蚁在返程途中仍能够摄取额外遇到的食物。留下踪迹的蚂蚁嗉囊部分填充可能是蚂蚁缩短觅食行程并加速蚁巢内信息更新的一种方式。此外,通过部分填充嗉囊,觅食者保留了对资源进行采样和品尝其他遇到的食物源的可能性。