dos Santos Gilson Costa, Hogan Jerry A, Willemart Rodrigo Hirata
Laboratório de Ecologia Sensorial e Comportamento de Artrópodes (LESCA), Escola de Artes Ciências e Humanidades, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua Arlindo Béttio, 1000 - Ermelino Matarazzo, 03828-000 São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Behav Processes. 2013 Nov;100:64-6. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2013.07.021. Epub 2013 Aug 7.
Associative learning has been demonstrated in many species of invertebrates, but has not been studied in arachnids, except for some spiders and a whip-spider. Herein, we tested the ability of a Neotropical harvestman, Discocyrtus invalidus (Arachnida, Opiliones) to associate a shelter with a chemical stimulus. We used an arena with a white light at the top and two openings on the floor, one giving access to a dark shelter and the other one closed with a mesh. Filter paper with different chemicals (mate or green tea) surrounded both openings. A harvestman (n=37) was released in the arena and its behavior recorded. The procedure was repeated for 14 consecutive days with each individual. We found that harvestmen got faster at finding the refuge, became less exploratory and tended to move toward the open shelter as the days passed. We conclude that the animals learned to associate the chemical stimulus with the shelter.
联想学习已在许多无脊椎动物物种中得到证实，但除了一些蜘蛛和鞭蛛外，尚未在蛛形纲动物中进行研究。在此，我们测试了一种新热带区盲蛛（Discocyrtus invalidus，蛛形纲，盲蛛目）将庇护所与化学刺激联系起来的能力。我们使用了一个顶部有白光且地面有两个开口的场地，一个开口通向黑暗的庇护所，另一个用网封闭。两个开口周围都放置了带有不同化学物质（配偶信息素或绿茶）的滤纸。将一只盲蛛（n = 37）放入场地并记录其行为。对每只个体连续14天重复该过程。我们发现，随着时间的推移，盲蛛找到避难所的速度更快，探索性降低，并且倾向于朝着开放的庇护所移动。我们得出结论，这些动物学会了将化学刺激与庇护所联系起来。
