Kandori Ikuo, Yamaki Takafumi
Laboratory of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Kinki University, Naka-machi, Nara, 631-8505, Japan.
Naturwissenschaften. 2012 Sep;99(9):705-13. doi: 10.1007/s00114-012-0952-y. Epub 2012 Aug 1.
Learning plays an important role in food acquisition for a wide range of insects. To increase their foraging efficiency, flower-visiting insects may learn to associate floral cues with the presence (so-called reward learning) or the absence (so-called non-reward learning) of a reward. Reward learning whilst foraging for flowers has been demonstrated in many insect taxa, whilst non-reward learning in flower-visiting insects has been demonstrated only in honeybees, bumblebees and hawkmoths. This study examined both reward and non-reward learning abilities in the butterfly Byasa alcinous whilst foraging among artificial flowers of different colours. This butterfly showed both types of learning, although butterflies of both sexes learned faster via reward learning. In addition, females learned via reward learning faster than males. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first empirical data on the learning speed of both reward and non-reward learning in insects. We discuss the adaptive significance of a lower learning speed for non-reward learning when foraging on flowers.
学习在多种昆虫获取食物的过程中起着重要作用。为了提高觅食效率，访花昆虫可能会学会将花朵线索与奖励的存在（所谓的奖励学习）或不存在（所谓的无奖励学习）联系起来。在许多昆虫类群中都已证明，访花昆虫在觅食花朵时存在奖励学习现象，而在访花昆虫中，无奖励学习仅在蜜蜂、熊蜂和天蛾中得到证实。本研究在不同颜色的人造花之间觅食时，考察了金裳凤蝶的奖励学习和无奖励学习能力。这种蝴蝶表现出了这两种学习类型，不过两性蝴蝶通过奖励学习学得更快。此外，雌性通过奖励学习比雄性学得更快。据我们所知，这些是关于昆虫奖励学习和无奖励学习速度的首批实证数据。我们讨论了在花朵上觅食时无奖励学习速度较低的适应性意义。
