Dissertation Research: The Development of Spatial Memory in Honeybees

Dyer，Fred IBN-9423576 非技术摘要 许多动物，从昆虫到人类，都面临着利用景观特征寻找觅食或筑巢的问题，几代生物学家和心理学家都对空间定向进行了深入研究。 蜜蜂长期以来一直是研究环境的视觉特征如何用于定向的重要模式生物。 工蜂在一个巨大的空间里移动，从巢穴到10公里远的地方寻找食物，利用地标和天体的线索来找到它们的路。 此外，他们用一个非常小的大脑来做这件事。 因此，他们提出了一个在某种程度上对所有动物都存在的问题的极端版本：考虑到神经系统存储和处理信息的能力是有限的，大脑如何被设计成在复杂的环境中产生适当的行为？ 以前的工作，蜜蜂如何利用景观的特点，方向集中的具体特点，蜜蜂了解的景观。 在这个项目中，蜜蜂的空间记忆如何发展的补充问题得到解决。 这项研究将研究蜜蜂在新的景观中第一次短暂（不到10分钟）定向飞行的结果。 通过研究蜜蜂的归巢能力，这些蜜蜂在第一次定向飞行后从蜂巢中被取代，这些实验将解决以下问题：蜜蜂如何广泛而均匀地了解巢穴周围的景观，要学习的景观是否会影响蜜蜂探索景观的程度，以及太阳在定向飞行期间学习地标中扮演什么角色。 这项工作将为蜜蜂和其他昆虫空间学习的神经机制研究铺平道路。 此外，在某种程度上，其他动物面临的导航问题与蜜蜂面临的问题相似，这些研究可能有助于发展关于空间记忆如何产生的一般理论。

Dyer, Fred IBN-9423576 Non Technical Summary Many animals, ranging from insects to human beings, face the problem of using features of a landscape to find places to feed or nest, and spatial orientation has been studied intensively by generations of biologists and psychologists. Honey bees have long been an important model organism for studies of how visual features of the environment can be used for orientation. Worker bees move over an enormous space, traveling up to 10 km from the nest in search of food, using landmarks and celestial cues to find their way. Furthermore, they do this with a very small brain. Thus they present an extreme version of a problem that arises on some level for all animals: given that there are limits to the capacity of a nervous system to store and process information,, how can the brain be designed to produce appropriate behavior in a complex environment? Previous work on how bees use features of the landscape for orientation has focused of the specific features of the landscape that bees learn about. In this project, the complementary issue of how the bees' spatial memory develops is addressed. The research will examine what bees learn as a consequence of their first short (less than 10 minutes) orientation flight in a new landscape. By studying the homing ability of bees that have been displaced from the hive following their first orientation flights, the experiments will address questions about how widely and uniformly bees learn about a landscape around the nest, whether the landscape to be learned influences the extent of the bees' exploration of the landscape, and what role the sun plays in learning landmarks during the orientation flight. This work should pave the way for studies of the neural mechanisms of spatial learning in bees and other insects. Also, to the extent that other animals face navigational problems parallel to those faced by honey bees, these studies may contribute to the d evelopment of general theories about how spatial memory is generated.