RUI: The Sensory Basis of the Dance Communcation of Honey Bees

RUI：蜜蜂舞蹈交流的感官基础

• 批准号: 8910550
• 负责人: William Towne
• 金额: $ 6.44万
• 依托单位: Kutztown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1989
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1989-07-15 至 1992-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8910550&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Sensory; Basis; Dance; Communcation

Acoustic communication is common among animals, and it has recently been discovered in bees, which are among the most well- understood of all insects. The well-known "dance" of the bee in the hive gives information on the direction and distance of a food source to other foraging bees. Preliminary recent studies now show that sound communication almost certainly plays a major role in this dance behavior. This project will use behavioral experiments to clarify the role of airborne sounds from the dancing bees, and further characterize the ability of bees to respond to sound. Bees will be trained to respond to artificially generated sounds, to analyze the frequency sensitivity of their acoustic sense; ablation studies will be used to identify the acoustic receptor organs. In addition, collaborating bioengineers have manufactured a small mechanical dancing bee, controlled by the experimenters, and this device will be used in the presence of real bees to determine which signals are necessary and sufficient for successful communication during the waggle dance. Both acoustic and non-acoustic cues will be given by the mechanical model, and the observed food-seeking field behavior of the bees that go out to forage will be assayed to see what parameters were important to communicate site direction and distance. This novel study will have high impact on an already rich story of a sophisticated sensory-guided behavior. In addition, there is a strong component of undergraduate participation in this work, and the work is very likely to have importance in the continuing use of bees as an important agricultural resource.

声音交流在动物中很常见，最近在蜜蜂身上发现了这种交流，蜜蜂是所有昆虫中最广为人知的一种。众所周知，蜜蜂在蜂箱中的“舞蹈”提供了有关食物来源与其他觅食蜜蜂的方向和距离的信息。最近的初步研究表明，声音交流几乎肯定在这种舞蹈行为中扮演着重要角色。该项目将使用行为实验来阐明跳舞的蜜蜂发出的空气中声音的作用，并进一步表征蜜蜂对声音的反应能力。将训练蜜蜂对人工产生的声音做出反应，分析其声学感觉的频率敏感度；消融研究将用于识别声学感受器。此外，合作的生物工程师还制造了一种由实验者控制的小型机械舞蹈蜜蜂，该设备将在真实蜜蜂在场的情况下使用，以确定哪些信号是摇摆舞中成功交流所必需的，也是足够的。机械模型将给出声学和非声学线索，并将分析观察到的蜜蜂外出觅食的野外行为，以确定哪些参数对传达现场方向和距离是重要的。这项新颖的研究将对一个关于复杂的感官引导行为的丰富故事产生重大影响。此外，这项工作有很强的本科生参与成分，这项工作很可能对继续利用蜜蜂作为重要的农业资源具有重要意义。