Animals have evolved foraging strategies to acquire blends of nutrients that maximize fitness traits. In social insects, nu trie nt regulation is complicated by the fact that few in dividuals, the foragers, must addre...Animals have evolved foraging strategies to acquire blends of nutrients that maximize fitness traits. In social insects, nu trie nt regulation is complicated by the fact that few in dividuals, the foragers, must address the diverge nt nutritional n eeds of all colony members simulta neously, includi ng other workers, the reproductives, and the brood. Here we used 3D nutritional geometry design to examine how bumblebee workers regulate their collection of 3 major macronutrients in the presence and absenee of brood. We provided small colonies artificial nectars (liquid diets) and pollens (solid diets) varying in their compositions of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates during 2 weeks. Colo nies give n a choice betwee n nutrition ally complementary diets self-selected foods to reach a target ratio of 71% proteins, 6% carbohydrates, and 23% lipids, irrespective of the presenee of brood. Whe n con fined to a single nutrition ally imbalanced solid diet, colonies without brood regulated lipid collection and over-collected protein relative to this target ratio, whereas colonies with brood regulated both lipid and protein collection. This brood effect on the regulation of nutrient collection by workers suggests that protein levels are critical for larval development. Our results highlight the importa nee of con sidering bee nu trition as a multidimensi onal phe no men on to better assess the effects of environmental impoverishment and malnutrition on population declines.展开更多
Recent developments allowed establishing virtual-reality (VR) setups to study multiple aspects of visual learning in honey bees under controlled experimental conditions. Here, we adopted a VR environment to investigat...Recent developments allowed establishing virtual-reality (VR) setups to study multiple aspects of visual learning in honey bees under controlled experimental conditions. Here, we adopted a VR environment to investigate the visual learning in the buff-tailed bumble bee Bombus terrestris. Based on responses to appetitive and aversive reinforcements used for conditioning, we show that bumble bees had the proper appetitive motivation to engage in the VR experiments and that they learned efficiently elemental color discriminations. In doing so, they reduced the latency to make a choice, increased the proportion of direct paths toward the virtual stimuli and walked faster toward them. Performance in a short-term retention test showed that bumble bees chose and fixated longer on the correct stimulus in the absence of reinforcement. Body size and weight, although variable across individuals, did not affect cognitive performances and had a mild impact on motor performances. Overall, we show that bumble bees are suitable experimental subjects for experiments on visual learning under VR conditions, which opens important perspectives for invasive studies on the neural and molecular bases of such learning given the robustness of these insects and the accessibility of their brain.展开更多
文摘Animals have evolved foraging strategies to acquire blends of nutrients that maximize fitness traits. In social insects, nu trie nt regulation is complicated by the fact that few in dividuals, the foragers, must address the diverge nt nutritional n eeds of all colony members simulta neously, includi ng other workers, the reproductives, and the brood. Here we used 3D nutritional geometry design to examine how bumblebee workers regulate their collection of 3 major macronutrients in the presence and absenee of brood. We provided small colonies artificial nectars (liquid diets) and pollens (solid diets) varying in their compositions of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates during 2 weeks. Colo nies give n a choice betwee n nutrition ally complementary diets self-selected foods to reach a target ratio of 71% proteins, 6% carbohydrates, and 23% lipids, irrespective of the presenee of brood. Whe n con fined to a single nutrition ally imbalanced solid diet, colonies without brood regulated lipid collection and over-collected protein relative to this target ratio, whereas colonies with brood regulated both lipid and protein collection. This brood effect on the regulation of nutrient collection by workers suggests that protein levels are critical for larval development. Our results highlight the importa nee of con sidering bee nu trition as a multidimensi onal phe no men on to better assess the effects of environmental impoverishment and malnutrition on population declines.
文摘Recent developments allowed establishing virtual-reality (VR) setups to study multiple aspects of visual learning in honey bees under controlled experimental conditions. Here, we adopted a VR environment to investigate the visual learning in the buff-tailed bumble bee Bombus terrestris. Based on responses to appetitive and aversive reinforcements used for conditioning, we show that bumble bees had the proper appetitive motivation to engage in the VR experiments and that they learned efficiently elemental color discriminations. In doing so, they reduced the latency to make a choice, increased the proportion of direct paths toward the virtual stimuli and walked faster toward them. Performance in a short-term retention test showed that bumble bees chose and fixated longer on the correct stimulus in the absence of reinforcement. Body size and weight, although variable across individuals, did not affect cognitive performances and had a mild impact on motor performances. Overall, we show that bumble bees are suitable experimental subjects for experiments on visual learning under VR conditions, which opens important perspectives for invasive studies on the neural and molecular bases of such learning given the robustness of these insects and the accessibility of their brain.
