期刊
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
卷 214, 期 1, 页码 113-121出版社
COMPANY BIOLOGISTS LTD
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.047407
关键词
signal detection theory; complex signals; mimicry; signal evolution; multimodal; foraging; color learning; Bombus impatiens; peak shift; plant-pollinator interactions
类别
资金
- NSF [IOS-0921280]
- University of Arizona Center for Insect Science through NIH [1K12 GM000708]
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0921280] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES [K12GM000708] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
Plants often attract pollinators with floral displays composed of visual, olfactory, tactile and gustatory stimuli. Since pollinators' responses to each of these stimuli are usually studied independently, the question of why plants produce multi-component floral displays remains relatively unexplored. Here we used signal detection theory to test the hypothesis that complex displays reduce a pollinator's uncertainty about the floral signal. Specifically, we asked whether one component of the floral display, scent, improved a bee's certainty about the value of another component, color hue. We first trained two groups of bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) to discriminate between rewarding and unrewarding artificial flowers of slightly different hues in the presence vs absence of scent. In a test phase, we presented these bees with a gradient of floral hues and assessed their ability to identify the hue rewarded during training. We interpreted the extent to which bees' preferences were biased away from the unrewarding hue ('peak shift') as an indicator of uncertainty in color discrimination. Our data show that the presence of an olfactory signal reduces uncertainty regarding color: not only was color learning facilitated on scented flowers but also bees showed a lower amount of peak shift in the presence of scent. We explore potential mechanisms by which scent might reduce uncertainty about color, and discuss the broader significance of our results for our understanding of signal evolution.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据