Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Department of Chemical Ecology, Alnarp, 230 53, Sweden.
J Exp Biol. 2010 Nov 1;213(Pt 21):3741-7. doi: 10.1242/jeb.043760.
Here, we analyse the flight behaviour of the hawkmoth Manduca sexta while it approaches three different artificial flower stimuli: a clearly visible blue flower, an invisible scented flower and a flower that is both visible and scented. By tracking the moths in fine temporal detail, we find that flight towards an artificial flower differs depending on whether the stimulus is unimodal (either visual or olfactory) or multimodal (both visual and olfactory). In all three cases, the moth reduces its speed as it nears the target but the speed is higher overall when the visual stimulus is not present. Visual feedback, as well as the concentration gradient of the odour, is used to guide the moths towards the stimulus. The main difference in flight behaviour between an approach towards a visual and a multimodal stimulus is that the olfactory information makes the moths turn more rapidly towards the multimodal stimulus. We also find that moths extend their proboscises in front of a clearly visible feeder independent of whether an odour is present. In contrast, a scented transparent artificial flower only occasionally triggers this response.
在这里，我们分析了美洲大蚕蛾在接近三种不同的人工花刺激物时的飞行行为：一种明显可见的蓝色花朵、一种不可见的有香味的花朵和一种同时具有可见和有香味的花朵。通过对飞蛾进行精细的时间细节跟踪，我们发现飞向人工花的飞行方式因刺激物是单模态（视觉或嗅觉）还是多模态（视觉和嗅觉）而异。在所有三种情况下，飞蛾在接近目标时都会降低速度，但在没有视觉刺激的情况下，速度总体上更高。视觉反馈以及气味的浓度梯度被用来引导飞蛾朝着刺激物移动。飞向视觉刺激和多模态刺激之间的飞行行为的主要区别在于，嗅觉信息使飞蛾更迅速地转向多模态刺激。我们还发现，飞蛾在明显可见的喂食器前伸出喙，而不管是否有气味存在。相比之下，有香味的透明人工花仅偶尔会引发这种反应。
