Dukas Reuven, Real Leslie A
Department of Zoology, North Carolina State University, 27695-7617, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Department of Biology, Indiana University, 47405, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Oecologia. 1993 May;94(2):244-246. doi: 10.1007/BF00341323.
The temporal and spatial scales employed by foraging bees in sampling their environment and making foraging decisions should depend both on the limits of bumble bee memory and on the spatial and temporal pattern of rewards in the habitat. We analyzed data from previous experiments to determine how recent foraging experience by bumble bees affects their flight distances to subsequent flowers. A single visit to a flower as sufficient to affect the flight distance to the next flower. However, longer sequences of two or three visits had an additional effect on the subsequent flight distance of individual foragers. This suggests that bumble bees can integrate information from at least three flowers for making a subsequent foraging decision. The existence of memory for floral characteristics at least at this scale may have significance for floral selection in natural environments.
觅食蜜蜂在对其环境进行采样并做出觅食决策时所采用的时空尺度，应该既取决于大黄蜂记忆的局限性，也取决于栖息地中奖励的时空模式。我们分析了先前实验的数据，以确定大黄蜂近期的觅食经历如何影响它们到后续花朵的飞行距离。对一朵花的单次访问就足以影响到下一朵花的飞行距离。然而，两到三次访问的较长序列对个体觅食者的后续飞行距离有额外影响。这表明大黄蜂可以整合来自至少三朵花的信息来做出后续的觅食决策。至少在这个尺度上存在对花朵特征的记忆，可能对自然环境中的花朵选择具有重要意义。
