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

巢友识别是群居昆虫群体生活的关键功能之一。1)新出现的木蚁（Camponotus japonicus）中工蚁辨别蚁后的学习能力取决于个体。鉴别能力被发现与大脑中细胞增殖的完成相一致。与这种脑成熟有关，详细分析了蘑菇体的胚胎后发育。2)对日本Camponotus japonicus来说，非配偶产生的表皮烃（CHC）混合物引起了强烈的攻击。触角上的特定感受器仅对非配偶的CHC混合物有反应，该感受器似乎在检测菌落特异性化学信号的外周识别机制中起关键作用。3)蜜蜂的识别线索似乎要广泛得多。为了研究模板更新可能在大脑中的过程，研究人员将具有辨认配偶能力的工蜂通过与非配偶保持一段时间的接触，暴露在不熟悉的群体环境中。它们通过参考群体内环境迅速改变模板，但在模板更新的早期阶段暂时保留旧模板。并详细分析了环境源性气味暂时吸附在表皮蜡和脂肪酸上的作用。4)从巢友识别的角度研究了大黄蜂和大黄蜂的社会寄生现象。

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.