Discrimination of flower colours in natural settings by the bumblebee species Bombus Terrestris (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
Discrimination of flower colours in natural settings by the bumblebee species Bombus Terrestris (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
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熊蜂物种 Bombus Terrestris（膜翅目：蜜蜂科）对自然环境中花色的辨别
DOI：
10.1127/entom.gen/28/2006/257
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发表时间：
2006
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
A. Dyer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Dyer
自由飞行的大黄蜂(Bombus Terrestris Linnaeus 1758)在受控照明实验室中被训练来访问均匀颜色的塑料刺激，然后在非奖励测试中评估它们从不同颜色刺激中区分目标颜色的能力。蜜蜂只有在颜色距离远高于辨别阈值时才能辨别相似的颜色，但随后辨别符合S型函数。比较了绝对条件函数和先前确定的差异条件函数的结果，结果表明，绝对条件函数最好地解释了以前在自然环境中观察到的蜜蜂的辨别和花朵恒定行为。对经验确定的绝对识别函数的建模允许预测蜜蜂将如何在复杂的觅食条件下区分花朵，这些条件可能包括背景和/或照明颜色的变化。因此，绝对条件作用应成为评价传粉者在自然环境中对花的区别的重要指南，并有助于理解为什么植物可能受到相当大的进化压力，以进化出独特的花色，以促进重要传粉者的花的稳定性。
Free-flying bumblebees (Bombus terrestris Linnaeus 1758) were trained to visit homogeneously coloured plastic stimuli in a controlled illumination laboratory, and then their ability to discriminate this target colour from differently coloured stimuli was evaluated in non-rewarded tests. Bees did not discriminate between similar colours until the colour distance was well above discrimination threshold, but then discrimination fitted a sigmoidal-type function. The results for this absolute conditioning function and a previously determined function for differential conditioning were compared,and it is shown that the absolute conditioning function best explains the discrimination and flower constancy behaviour of bees that has previously been observed in natural settings. Modeling of the empirically determined absolute discrimination function allows for predictions of how bees would discriminate between flowers in complex foraging conditions that might include changes in the background and/or illumination colour. The absolute conditioning function should thus serve as an important guide for the evaluation of pollinator discriminations between flowers in natural settings,and for the understanding of why there may have been considerable evolutionary pressure on plants to evolve distinctive flower colours so as to promote flower constancy in important pollinators.