Barron Andrew B, Plath Jenny Aino
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
J Exp Biol. 2017 Dec 1;220(Pt 23):4339-4346. doi: 10.1242/jeb.142778.
Honey bee dance has been intensively studied as a communication system, and yet we still know very little about the neurobiological mechanisms supporting how dances are produced and interpreted. Here, we discuss how new information on the functions of the central complex (CX) of the insect brain might shed some light on possible neural mechanisms of dance behaviour. We summarise the features of dance communication across the species of the genus We then propose that neural mechanisms of orientation and spatial processing found to be supported by the CX may function in dance communication also, and that this mechanistic link could explain some specific features of the dance form. This is purely a hypothesis, but in proposing this hypothesis, and how it might be investigated, we hope to stimulate new mechanistic analyses of dance communication.
蜜蜂舞蹈作为一种通信系统已得到深入研究，但我们对支撑舞蹈产生和解读的神经生物学机制仍知之甚少。在此，我们讨论昆虫大脑中央复合体（CX）功能的新信息如何可能为舞蹈行为的潜在神经机制提供一些线索。我们总结了蜜蜂属各物种间舞蹈通信的特征。然后我们提出，发现由CX支持的定向和空间处理神经机制可能在舞蹈通信中也发挥作用，并且这种机制联系可以解释舞蹈形式的一些特定特征。这纯粹是一个假设，但在提出这个假设以及探讨如何对其进行研究时，我们希望能激发对舞蹈通信的新机制分析。
