Colony nutritional status modulates worker responses to foraging recruitment pheromone in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris
Colony nutritional status modulates worker responses to foraging recruitment pheromone in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-008-0623-3
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发表时间：
2008-10-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Raine, Nigel E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Molet, Mathieu;Chittka, Lars;Raine, Nigel E.
群居昆虫的觅食活动应受群体营养状况和食物供应的调节，因此，对招募信号的发射和反应都取决于当前条件。采用全自动射频识别（RFID）技术跟踪标记大黄蜂（Bombus terrestris）在16,000次觅食期间的觅食活动，我们测试了储存的食物（满蜜罐的数量）提供的线索是否可以调节工蜂对招聘信息素信号的反应。对不同食物储备水平的蚁群施用人工觅食信息素。在食物少的群体中，对招募信息素的反应更强，导致更多的工蜂变得活跃，更多的觅食回合被执行。除了先前的报告显示，在低食物的群体中，成功的觅食工蜂表现得更兴奋，在此期间他们释放招募信息素，而不活跃的工蜂更容易在花蜜涌入后离开巢穴，我们的研究结果表明，进化已经形成了第三条途径来调节大黄蜂的觅食活动，从而防止不必要的能量消耗和在食物储备已经很高的情况下暴露于风险之中。这种新的反馈回路很有趣，因为它涉及到对信号的上下文依赖反应。它强调了觅食者释放的信息素（信号）和营养状况（线索）的信息整合，这些信息发生在个体工蜂决定开始觅食之前。我们的研究结果支持了一种新兴的观点，即对信息素的反应可能不像人们普遍认为的那样根深蒂固。
Foraging activity in social insects should be regulated by colony nutritional status and food availability, such that both the emission of, and response to, recruitment signals depend on current conditions. Using fully automatic radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to follow the foraging activity of tagged bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) during 16,000 foraging bouts, we tested whether the cue provided by stored food (the number of full honeypots) could modulate the response of workers to the recruitment pheromone signal. Artificial foraging pheromones were applied to colonies with varied levels of food reserves. The response to recruitment pheromones was stronger in colonies with low food, resulting in more workers becoming active and more foraging bouts being performed. In addition to previous reports showing that in colonies with low food successful foragers perform more excited runs during which they release recruitment pheromone and inactive workers are more prone to leave the nest following nectar influx, our results indicate that evolution has shaped a third pathway that modulates bumblebee foraging activity, thus preventing needless energy expenditure and exposure to risk when food stores are already high. This new feedback loop is intriguing since it involves context-dependent response to a signal. It highlights the integration of information from both forager-released pheromones (signal) and nutritional status (cue) that occurs within individual workers before making the decision to start foraging. Our results support the emerging view that responses to pheromones may be less hardwired than commonly acknowledged.