Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees.
Inter-individual variability in the foraging behaviour of traplining bumblebees.
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DOI：
10.1038/s41598-017-04919-8
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发表时间：
2017-07-04
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Lihoreau M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Klein S;Pasquaretta C;Barron AB;Devaud JM;Lihoreau M
蜜蜂、蚂蚁和黄蜂等群居昆虫的工作者在决策、学习和记忆方面表现出一定程度的个体间差异。这些自然的认知差异是否会转化为不同的适应性行为策略，几乎是个未知数。在这里，我们研究了大黄蜂在人造花之间建立路线的运动模式的变异性。我们记录了29只蜜蜂在三个实验阵列中连续20次觅食的所有探花序列，每个实验阵列的特点是人造花和三维地标的独特空间配置。所有的蜜蜂都开始开发有效的路线，因为它们在每个阵列中积累了觅食经验，并在路线保真度和觅食性能方面显示出一致的个体差异，这是通过旅行速度和重访花朵的频率来衡量的。虽然蜜蜂重复相同路线的倾向受到其群体来源的影响，但觅食能力与身体大小有关。体型最大的采集者行进速度更快，对空花的再访次数也更少。我们讨论了这种个体间差异在觅食种姓中的可能适应价值，以优化社会传粉者的群体水平觅食行为。
Workers of social insects, such as bees, ants and wasps, show some degree of inter-individual variability in decision-making, learning and memory. Whether these natural cognitive differences translate into distinct adaptive behavioural strategies is virtually unknown. Here we examined variability in the movement patterns of bumblebee foragers establishing routes between artificial flowers. We recorded all flower visitation sequences performed by 29 bees tested for 20 consecutive foraging bouts in three experimental arrays, each characterised by a unique spatial configuration of artificial flowers and three-dimensional landmarks. All bees started to develop efficient routes as they accumulated foraging experience in each array, and showed consistent inter-individual differences in their levels of route fidelity and foraging performance, as measured by travel speed and the frequency of revisits to flowers. While the tendency of bees to repeat the same route was influenced by their colony origin, foraging performance was correlated to body size. The largest foragers travelled faster and made less revisits to empty flowers. We discuss the possible adaptive value of such inter-individual variability within the forager caste for optimisation of colony-level foraging performances in social pollinators.