Bumblebees perceive the spatial layout of their environment in relation to their body size and form to minimize inflight collisions
Bumblebees perceive the spatial layout of their environment in relation to their body size and form to minimize inflight collisions
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2016872117
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发表时间：
2020-12-08
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Egelhaaf, Martin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ravi, Sridhar;Siesenop, Tim;Egelhaaf, Martin
在复杂栖息地活动的动物必须经常与路上的障碍作斗争。人类和其他高度认知的脊椎动物通过感知周围环境的布局与自身身体轮廓和行动能力之间的关系来避免碰撞。目前尚不清楚昆虫是否具有这种能力，因为它们的大脑要小得多。我们使用了体型差异很大、经常在茂密植被中觅食的大黄蜂，来研究飞虫在与周围环境互动时是否会考虑自己的体型。训练在隧道中飞行的大黄蜂偶尔会遇到一堵堵墙，里面有一个宽度不等的缺口。蜜蜂成功地通过狭窄的缝隙，即使是那些比它们的翼展小得多的缝隙，它们首先进行横向扫描（左右飞行），以视觉上评估缝隙。然后，蜜蜂在经过时重新调整飞行姿势（即偏航或航向角），最大限度地减少其预计的正面宽度并减轻碰撞；在极端情况下，蜜蜂会完全侧着飞过缺口。蜜蜂在接近时花在扫描上的时间，以及它们重新调整方向以穿过间隙的程度，都不是由间隙的绝对大小决定的，而是由间隙相对于每只蜜蜂自己翼展的大小决定的。我们的研究结果表明，与人类和其他脊椎动物类似，飞行大黄蜂能够感知周围环境相对于其身体大小和形状的适应性，从而在复杂的环境中安全导航。
Animals that move through complex habitats must frequently contend with obstacles in their path. Humans and other highly cognitive vertebrates avoid collisions by perceiving the relationship between the layout of their surroundings and the properties of their own body profile and action capacity. It is unknown whether insects, which have much smaller brains, possess such abilities. We used bumblebees, which vary widely in body size and regularly forage in dense vegetation, to investigate whether flying insects consider their own size when interacting with their surroundings. Bumblebees trained to fly in a tunnel were sporadically presented with an obstructing wall containing a gap that varied in width. Bees successfully flew through narrow gaps, even those that were much smaller than their wingspans, by first performing lateral scanning (side-to-side flights) to visually assess the aperture. Bees then reoriented their in-flight posture (i.e., yaw or heading angle) while passing through, minimizing their projected frontal width and mitigating collisions; in extreme cases, bees flew entirely sideways through the gap. Both the time that bees spent scanning during their approach and the extent to which they reoriented themselves to pass through the gap were determined not by the absolute size of the gap, but by the size of the gap relative to each bee's own wingspan. Our findings suggest that, similar to humans and other vertebrates, flying bumblebees perceive the affordance of their surroundings relative their body size and form to navigate safely through complex environments.