Muñoz-Galicia Deysi, Castillo-Guevara Citlalli, Lara Carlos
Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, San Felipe, Ixtacuixtla, Tlaxcala, Mexico.
PeerJ. 2021 Nov 29;9:e12567. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12567. eCollection 2021.
Learning abilities help animals modify their behaviors based on experience and innate sensory biases to confront environmental unpredictability. In a food acquisition context, the ability to detect, learn, and switch is fundamental in a wide range of insect species facing the ever-changing availability of their floral rewards. Here, we used an experimental approach to address the innate color preferences and learning abilities of the common green-eyed white butterfly ().
In Experiment 1, we conducted innate preference choice-tests to determine whether butterflies had a strong innate color preference and to evaluate whether color preferences differed depending on the array of colors offered. We faced naïve butterflies to artificial flowers of four colors (quadruple choice-test): yellow, pink, white, and red; their choices were assessed. In Experiment 2, we examined the ability of this butterfly species to associate colors with rewards while exploring if the spectral reflectance value of a flower color can slow or accelerate this behavioral response. Butterflies were first trained to be fed from artificial yellow flowers inserted in a feeder. These were later replaced by artificial flowers with a similar (blue) or very different (white) spectral reflectance range. Each preference test comprised a dual-choice test (yellow blue, yellow white).
Butterflies showed an innate strong preference for red flowers. Both the number of visits and the time spent probing these flowers were much greater than the pink, white, and yellow color flowers. Butterflies learn to associate colors with sugar rewards. They then learned the newly rewarded colors as quickly and proficiently as if the previously rewarded color was similar in spectral reflectance value; the opposite occurs if the newly rewarded color is very different than the previously rewarded color.
Our findings suggest that common green-eyed white butterflies have good learning abilities. These capabilities may allow them to respond rapidly to different color stimulus.
学习能力有助于动物根据经验和先天的感官偏好来改变其行为，以应对环境的不可预测性。在食物获取的情境中，对于面临花蜜供应不断变化的众多昆虫物种而言，检测、学习和转换的能力至关重要。在此，我们采用实验方法来研究常见的绿眼白蝴蝶（）的先天颜色偏好和学习能力。
在实验1中，我们进行了先天偏好选择测试，以确定蝴蝶是否具有强烈的先天颜色偏好，并评估颜色偏好是否因所提供的颜色组合而有所不同。我们让未接触过的蝴蝶面对四种颜色的人造花（四重选择测试）：黄色、粉色、白色和红色；并评估它们的选择。在实验2中，我们研究了这种蝴蝶将颜色与奖励联系起来的能力，同时探究花朵颜色的光谱反射率值是否会减缓或加速这种行为反应。蝴蝶首先被训练从插入喂食器中的黄色人造花获取食物。随后，这些黄色人造花被具有相似（蓝色）或非常不同（白色）光谱反射率范围的人造花所取代。每次偏好测试都包括一个双选测试（黄色对蓝色、黄色对白色）。
蝴蝶表现出对红色花朵的先天强烈偏好。对这些花朵的访问次数和探测时间都远多于粉色、白色和黄色花朵。蝴蝶学会将颜色与糖奖励联系起来。然后，它们能够同样快速且熟练地学习新的奖励颜色，就好像先前奖励的颜色在光谱反射率值上相似一样；反之，如果新奖励的颜色与先前奖励的颜色非常不同，则情况相反。
我们的研究结果表明，常见的绿眼白蝴蝶具有良好的学习能力。这些能力可能使它们能够对不同的颜色刺激迅速做出反应。
