Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Anim Cogn. 2020 Nov;23(6):1081-1086. doi: 10.1007/s10071-020-01421-z. Epub 2020 Aug 9.
Flying safely and avoiding obstacles in low light is crucial for the bumblebees that forage around dawn and dusk. Previous work has shown that bumblebees overcome the limitations of their visual system-typically adapted for bright sunlight-by increasing the time over which they sample photons. While this improves visual sensitivity, it decreases their capacity to resolve fast motion. This study investigates what effect this has on obstacle avoidance in flight, a task that requires the bees to reliably detect obstacles in the frontal visual field and to make a timely diversion to their flight path. In both bright and dim light, bumblebees avoided the 5 cm diameter obstacle at a consistent distance (22 cm) although in dim light they approached it more slowly from a distance of at least at least 80 cm. This suggests that bumblebees have an effective strategy for avoiding obstacles in all light conditions under which they are naturally active, and it is hypothesised that this is based on a time-to-contact prediction.
在低光照条件下安全飞行并避开障碍物对在黎明和黄昏觅食的熊蜂来说至关重要。之前的研究表明，熊蜂通过增加它们对光子的采样时间来克服其视觉系统的局限性——通常适应于明亮的阳光。虽然这提高了视觉灵敏度，但降低了它们对快速运动的分辨能力。本研究探讨了这对飞行中的障碍物回避有什么影响，这项任务要求蜜蜂可靠地检测前方视野中的障碍物，并及时改变飞行路线。在明亮和昏暗的光线下，熊蜂以一致的距离（22 厘米）避开了 5 厘米直径的障碍物，尽管在昏暗的光线下，它们从至少 80 厘米的距离开始以更慢的速度接近障碍物。这表明，熊蜂在其自然活动的所有光照条件下都有一个有效的障碍物回避策略，并且假设这是基于时间到接触的预测。
