Effect of light intensity on flight control and temporal properties of photoreceptors in bumblebees
Effect of light intensity on flight control and temporal properties of photoreceptors in bumblebees
复制标题
DOI：
10.1242/jeb.113886
复制
发表时间：
2015-05-01
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Dacke, Marie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Reber, Therese;Vahakainu, Antti;Dacke, Marie
为了控制飞行，昆虫依靠在环境中移动时在视网膜上产生的视觉运动模式。当光照水平下降时，视觉变得不那么可靠，飞行控制因此变得更具挑战性。在这里，我们研究了光强度对飞行控制的影响，通过拍摄自由飞行的大黄蜂（熊蜂terrestris，林奈1758）在实验隧道在不同的光水平的轨迹。随着光照水平的下降，飞行速度下降，飞行轨迹变得更加曲折，但蜜蜂仍然非常善于围绕隧道的中线飞行。为了研究这种强大的飞行性能是否可以通过大黄蜂视网膜中的视觉适应来解释，我们还检查了在相同光强度下对绿色敏感的光感受器的响应速度。我们发现，随着光照水平的下降，光感受器的反应速度显着下降。这表明熊蜂具有行为（飞行速度降低）和视网膜（感光器反应速度降低）适应性，使它们能够在昏暗的光线下飞行。然而，在昏暗的光线下记录的更曲折的飞行路径表明，这些适应性不支持在一天的黄昏时刻以同样的精度飞行。
To control flight, insects rely on the pattern of visual motion generated on the retina as they move through the environment. When light levels fall, vision becomes less reliable and flight control thus becomes more challenging. Here, we investigated the effect of light intensity on flight control by filming the trajectories of free-flying bumblebees (Bombus terrestris, Linnaeus 1758) in an experimental tunnel at different light levels. As light levels fell, flight speed decreased and the flight trajectories became more tortuous but the bees were still remarkably good at centring their flight about the tunnel's midline. To investigate whether this robust flight performance can be explained by visual adaptations in the bumblebee retina, we also examined the response speed of the green-sensitive photoreceptors at the same light intensities. We found that the response speed of the photoreceptors significantly decreased as light levels fell. This indicates that bumblebees have both behavioural (reduction in flight speed) and retinal (reduction in response speed of the photoreceptors) adaptations to allow them to fly in dim light. However, the more tortuous flight paths recorded in dim light suggest that these adaptations do not support flight with the same precision during the twilight hours of the day.