Discrimination mechanism of nest- and non-nestmates in the colonies of eusocial insents

巢内识别是群居昆虫殖民地生活的重要功能之一。1）工蚁识别蚁后的学习能力取决于工蚁个体。发现辨别能力与大脑中细胞增殖的完成相一致。2）对于弓背蚁，非巢伙伴产生的表皮碳氢化合物（CHC）混合物会引起强烈的攻击性。触角上的特定感器被鉴定为仅对非巢伙伴CHC混合物做出反应，该感器似乎在检测群体特异性化学信号的外周识别机制中起关键作用。为了研究可能在大脑中的模板更新过程，表现出巢伙伴辨别能力的工作人员通过与非巢伙伴保持一段时间而暴露于不熟悉的群体环境。它们通过参照群体内环境迅速改变模板，但在模板更新的早期暂时保留旧模板。分析了环境源气味在角质层蜡质和脂肪酸上的吸附作用。4）从巢友识别的角度研究了东北胡蜂和相似胡蜂的社会寄生行为。

Nestmate discrimination is one of the key function of the colony life in social insects.1)Learning ability of workers to discriminate their queen in the newly-emerged carpenter ant, Camponotus japonicus, depends on the individuals. Discriminative ability was found to coincide with the completion of cell proliferation in the brain. In relation to this brain maturation, postembryonic development of the mushroom bodies was analyzed in detail.2)For Camponotus japonicus, cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) blends produced by non-nestmates elicit strong aggression. The specific sensillum on the antennae was identified to respond only to non-nestmates CHC blends, This sensillum seemed to play a key role for a peripheral recognition mechanism in detecting colony-specific chemical signals.3)In honeybees, recognition cues seem to be much wider. To investigate the process of template renewal probably in the brain, workers showing the nestmate discrimination ability were exposed to unfamiliar colony environments by keeping with non-nestmates for a while. They changed their template rapidly by referring to the inner-colony environment but retain the old template temporally in the early phase of the template renewal. Role of environment-originated odors temporally adsorbed onto the cuticular wax and the fatty acids were also analyzed in detail.4)Social parasitism seen in the hornets, Vespa dybowskii and V.simillima, was investigated from the point of view of nestmate recognition.