Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Biozentrum, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Department of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, Biozentrum, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
PLoS One. 2018 Nov 7;13(11):e0205821. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205821. eCollection 2018.
Bees receive nectar and pollen as reward for pollinating plants. Pollen of different plant species varies widely in nutritional composition. In order to select pollen of appropriate nutritional quality, bees would benefit if they could distinguish different pollen types. Whether they rely on visual, olfactory and/or chemotactile cues to distinguish between different pollen types, has however been little studied. In this study, we examined whether and how Apis mellifera workers differentiate between almond and apple pollen. We used differential proboscis extension response conditioning with olfactory and chemotactile stimulation, in light and darkness, and in summer and winter bees. We found that honeybees were only able to differentiate between different pollen types, when they could use both chemotactile and olfactory cues. Visual cues further improved learning performance. Summer bees learned faster than winter bees. Our results thus highlight the importance of multisensory information for pollen discrimination.
蜜蜂为植物授粉会获得花蜜和花粉作为奖励。不同植物物种的花粉在营养成分上差异很大。为了选择具有适当营养质量的花粉，如果蜜蜂能够区分不同的花粉类型，它们将从中受益。然而，它们是否依赖视觉、嗅觉和/或趋化性线索来区分不同的花粉类型，这方面的研究却很少。在这项研究中，我们检验了意大利蜜蜂工蜂是否以及如何区分杏仁花粉和苹果花粉。我们使用嗅觉和趋化性刺激的差异喙延伸反应条件作用，在光和暗两种条件下，以及夏季和冬季的蜜蜂中进行了测试。我们发现，只有当蜜蜂能够同时使用化学和嗅觉线索时，它们才能区分不同的花粉类型。视觉线索进一步提高了学习成绩。夏季蜜蜂比冬季蜜蜂学习得更快。因此，我们的研究结果强调了多感官信息对于花粉识别的重要性。
