Information processing and behavioral control by multimodal stimuli in honey bee

本研究对蜜蜂在各种感官刺激下的飞行行为进行了实验和分析。这一研究结果为构建飞行昆虫飞行控制机制的数学模型提供了新的思路。我们开发了一种新的实验装置和协议，以测量自由和thethered飞行条件下的视觉，听觉和嗅觉刺激的飞行特性。在我们的飞行模拟器上进行的实验表明，形状和颜色信息在蜜蜂视觉中具有不同的位置普适性。研究还表明，蜜蜂群体中摇摆舞所产生的有节奏的声音即使在飞行状态下也倾向于对声源进行定向。此外，利用风洞，其中的气流和风向是稳定的，我们用摄像机记录飞行蜜蜂，分析飞行面积，速度，角速度和方向。在风洞中心用带有气味的人工喂食器训练蜜蜂。取下喂食器后，在有或无嗅觉刺激的条件下，从位于喂食器上风向的玻璃管中给予飞行行为。实验结果表明，气味区内外的速度、角速度和方向不同。飞行轨迹往往是弯曲或曲线在刚刚超出气味范围。两种类型的行为控制过程，回忆记忆地点和获取外部感觉信号，存在和转换，使个体的飞行性能的变化。行为的可变性对于适应环境变化可能是重要的。

In this study, flight behavior of honeybee to various kinds of sensory stimuli was experimented and analyzed. It is expected to provide new insight into construct a mathematical model for flight control mechanism of the flight insect. We are developed a new experimental setup and protocol to measure the flight properties under the free and thethered flight conditions stimulating with visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli. In the thethered experiments by our flight simulator, it was shown that shape and color information has a different positional universality in the honeybee vision. It was also shown that rhythmic sounds caused by the waggle dance in the honeybee colony tended to make orientation to the sound source even under the flight. Furthermore, using a wind tunnel, in which the airflow and wind direction were stabilized, we recorded flying bees with a video camera to analyze the flight area, velocity, angular velocity and direction. Bees were trained with an artificial feeder with an odor in the center of wind tunnel. After the feeder was removed, the flight behavior was compared under the condition with or without the olfactory stimulus, given from a glass pipe, located upwind from the feeder place. In this experiment, the results shown that velocity, angular velocity and direction were different between the inside and the outside of the odor area. Flight trajectories tend to be bent or curve in the just outside of the odor range. Two type of behavioral control process, recalling memory place and acquiring external sensory signal, were existed and switched to make variation of individual flight properties. The variability of behaviors could be important to adapt to the environmental changes.