Muijres Florian T, van Dooremalen Coby, Lankheet Martin, Lugt Heleen, de Vries Lana J, Van Langevelde Frank
Experimental Zoology Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Bees@WUR, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
R Soc Open Sci. 2020 Sep 9;7(9):201222. doi: 10.1098/rsos.201222. eCollection 2020 Sep.
The parasitic mite is an important contributor to the high losses of western honeybees. Forager bees from -infested colonies show reduced homing and flight capacity; it is not known whether flight manoeuvrability and related learning capability are also affected. Here, we test how honeybees from -infested and control colonies fly in an environment that is unfamiliar at the beginning of each experimental day. Using stereoscopic high-speed videography, we analysed 555 landing manoeuvres recorded during 12 days of approximately 5 h in length. From this, we quantified landing success as percentage of successful landings, and assessed how this changed over time. We found that the forager workforce of -infested colonies did not improve their landing success over time, while for control bees landing success improved with approximately 10% each hour. Analysis of the landing trajectories showed that control bees improved landing success by increasing the ratio between in-flight aerodynamic braking and braking at impact on the landing platform; bees from -infested colonies did not increase this ratio over time. The -induced detriment to this landing skill-learning capability might limit forager bees from -infested colonies to adapt to new or challenging conditions; this might consequently contribute to -induced mortality of honeybee colonies.
寄生螨是西方蜜蜂大量损失的一个重要因素。来自受感染蜂群的觅食蜜蜂归巢和飞行能力下降；尚不清楚飞行机动性和相关学习能力是否也受到影响。在此，我们测试了来自受感染蜂群和对照蜂群的蜜蜂在每个实验日开始时都不熟悉的环境中的飞行情况。我们使用立体高速摄像技术，分析了在为期12天、每天约5小时的时间里记录的555次着陆动作。据此，我们将着陆成功率量化为成功着陆的百分比，并评估其随时间的变化情况。我们发现，受感染蜂群的觅食工蜂的着陆成功率不会随时间提高，而对照蜂群的蜜蜂着陆成功率每小时提高约10%。对着陆轨迹的分析表明，对照蜂群通过提高飞行中的空气动力制动与着陆平台撞击时的制动之间的比率来提高着陆成功率；受感染蜂群的蜜蜂这一比率不会随时间增加。感染引发的对着陆技能学习能力的损害可能会限制受感染蜂群的觅食蜜蜂适应新的或具有挑战性的环境；这可能因此导致感染引发的蜜蜂蜂群死亡。
