Life-Long Radar Tracking of Bumblebees
Life-Long Radar Tracking of Bumblebees
复制标题
大黄蜂的终身雷达跟踪
作者：
J. Woodgate;J. Makinson;Ka S. Lim;A. Reynolds;L. Chittka
昆虫传粉者如熊蜂在许多生态系统中起着至关重要的作用，因此了解它们在景观尺度上的觅食活动非常重要。我们使用谐波雷达记录自然觅食行为熊蜂terrestris audax工人在他们的整个觅食生涯。四只觅食蚂蚁每次飞出巢穴都被记录下来。我们的数据以前所未有的细节水平揭示了蜜蜂飞到哪里以及它们的行为如何随着经验而变化。我们确定了每只蜜蜂的飞行是如何分为两类的，我们称之为探索飞行和利用飞行，研究了这两种飞行类型之间的差异，以及它们在蜜蜂觅食生涯中的发生是如何变化的。学习资源的开发发生在有效的，直接的旅行，通常是一个单一的觅食地点，很少与其他领域的探索相结合。对景观的探索通常发生在每只蜜蜂的前几次飞行中，但我们的数据显示，在蜜蜂的整个觅食生涯中，都可以进行进一步的探索飞行。蜜蜂在探索环境的方式、对特定斑块的忠诚度、探索与利用的比例、觅食的持续时间和频率方面表现出惊人的差异。一只蜜蜂在四次飞行中开发了一条通往饲料地的直线路线，并沿着这条路线专门飞行了六天，然后完全放弃它去了一个更近的位置;自从她九天前第一次探索飞行以来，第二个位置还没有被访问过。另一只蜜蜂只进行了罕见的探索飞行，并在其一生中继续广泛探索;另外两只蜜蜂在探索和开发之间表现出更频繁的转换。我们的数据揭示了大黄蜂如何平衡对环境的探索和对资源的利用，并揭示了个体之间的极端差异。
Insect pollinators such as bumblebees play a vital role in many ecosystems, so it is important to understand their foraging movements on a landscape scale. We used harmonic radar to record the natural foraging behaviour of Bombus terrestris audax workers over their entire foraging career. Every flight ever made outside the nest by four foragers was recorded. Our data reveal where the bees flew and how their behaviour changed with experience, at an unprecedented level of detail. We identified how each bee’s flights fit into two categories—which we named exploration and exploitation flights—examining the differences between the two types of flight and how their occurrence changed over the course of the bees’ foraging careers. Exploitation of learned resources takes place during efficient, straight trips, usually to a single foraging location, and is seldom combined with exploration of other areas. Exploration of the landscape typically occurs in the first few flights made by each bee, but our data show that further exploration flights can be made throughout the bee’s foraging career. Bees showed striking levels of variation in how they explored their environment, their fidelity to particular patches, ratio of exploration to exploitation, duration and frequency of their foraging bouts. One bee developed a straight route to a forage patch within four flights and followed this route exclusively for six days before abandoning it entirely for a closer location; this second location had not been visited since her first exploratory flight nine days prior. Another bee made only rare exploitation flights and continued to explore widely throughout its life; two other bees showed more frequent switches between exploration and exploitation. Our data shed light on the way bumblebees balance exploration of the environment with exploitation of resources and reveal extreme levels of variation between individuals.