Hodge Elizabeth A, Alcalde Anton Amaia, Bestea Louise, Hernández Greta, Margereth Aguilar Jane, Farnworth Max S, Dalbosco Dell'Aglio Denise, McMillan W Owen, Montgomery Stephen H
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK.
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City 0843-03092, Panama.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2025 Jun 26;380(1929):20240119. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2024.0119.
How animals perceive, process and respond to environmental cues is tightly tuned to species-specific ecological demands and reflected by the structure of neural systems. In the Neotropical butterflies, , the mushroom bodies, insect learning and memory centres are significantly expanded compared with their closest relatives. This expansion coincided with the evolution of a novel diet of pollen and the ability to learn spatial foraging routes. Previous research has shown that have more accurate long-term visual memory than other Heliconiini. Here, we test whether this enhanced memory stability is specific to visual contexts by conducting a long-term olfactory memory assay in two species and two outgroup species. We found no difference in long-term olfactory memory between and outgroup Heliconiini, and combining data from olfactory and visual memory trials confirmed a modality-specific improvement in memory recall in . Tests of how Heliconiini species prioritize olfactory and visual cues when presented in conflict show no consistent pattern, suggesting that variation in memory stability is not explained by inter-specific differences in attentiveness to sensory cues. Our data provide a rare case where memory performance has been compared across species and sensory modalities to identify evidence of a modality-specific shift.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Selection shapes diverse animal minds'.
动物如何感知、处理和响应环境线索与特定物种的生态需求紧密相关，并通过神经系统的结构得以体现。在新热带蝴蝶中，蘑菇体（昆虫的学习和记忆中心）与其近亲相比显著扩大。这种扩大与新出现的花粉饮食习性以及学习空间觅食路线的能力的进化相吻合。先前的研究表明，[此处原文缺失特定蝴蝶种类名称]比其他翠蛱蝶亚族具有更准确的长期视觉记忆。在此，我们通过对两种[此处原文缺失特定蝴蝶种类名称]和两种外类群物种进行长期嗅觉记忆测定，来测试这种增强的记忆稳定性是否特定于视觉情境。我们发现[此处原文缺失特定蝴蝶种类名称]和外类群翠蛱蝶亚族在长期嗅觉记忆方面没有差异，并且结合嗅觉和视觉记忆试验的数据证实了[此处原文缺失特定蝴蝶种类名称]在记忆回忆方面存在特定模态的改善。当呈现冲突的嗅觉和视觉线索时，对翠蛱蝶亚族物种如何优先处理这些线索的测试没有显示出一致的模式，这表明记忆稳定性的差异无法通过对感官线索的种间注意力差异来解释。我们的数据提供了一个罕见的案例，即跨物种和感官模态比较记忆表现以识别特定模态转变的证据。本文是西奥·墨菲会议议题“选择塑造多样的动物思维”的一部分。
