PLoS One:大黃蜂學習對手的捕食技巧來尋找食物

近日，國際著名雜誌PLoS One刊登了來自英國的研究人員的最新研究成果「Conspecific and Heterospecific Information Use in Bumblebees
」，文章中，研究者指出，大黃蜂可以學習競爭對手的方法來尋找最佳的食物資源。研究者培養了大量大黃蜂，然後給他們不同物種尋找食物的方式，讓他們定位尋找食物。

研究者發現，大黃蜂可以學習來自蜜蜂的信息，而且運用熟練，社會學習並不是限制在單一物種之間的一個過程，大黃的這種例子就表明，不同物種之間也可以很有效率的進行學習，Erika Dawson博士表示，很多社會研究者都把注意力集中在同物種不同個體之間的研究，當然了，工程師也從動物那裡學到了很多信息，就比如人類模擬鳥類的飛行而發明了飛機，對於動物而言，當然也可以學習不同物種的信息了，比如學習別的動物的捕食技巧或者築巢技術。

作者的研究中，他們發現，從別的物種那裡學到的信息會非常有價值，就像大黃蜂一樣，它們能夠將這種信息很快學會，並且應用的很好，蜂群之間會互相學習對手的捕食技巧，但是它們仍然會和不同蜂種分享一朵花中的蜂蜜，向日葵可以供很多蜂群來取食，同時也早就了很多種傳粉者。

研究結果表明，兩個種之間的競爭將會比以往激烈很多，研究者表示，如果大黃蜂用自身的技術，外加學習蜜蜂的技術來進行食物搜尋的話，這將會給我們關於物種群落結構和形成提供一定的生態學暗示，可以幫助我們更好地理解天然傳粉者之間的競爭模式。

（生物谷：T.Shen編譯）

Conspecific and Heterospecific Information Use in Bumblebees

Erika H. Dawson, Lars Chittka*

Heterospecific social learning has been understudied in comparison to interactions between members of the same species. However, the learning mechanisms behind such information use can allow animals to be flexible in the cues that are used. This raises the question of whether conspecific cues are inherently more influential than cues provided by heterospecifics, or whether animals can simply use any cue that predicts fitness enhancing conditions, including those provided by heterospecifics. To determine how freely social information travels across species boundaries, we trained bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) to learn to use cues provided by conspecifics and heterospecific honey bees (Apis mellifera) to locate valuable floral resources. We found that heterospecific demonstrators did not differ from conspecifics in the extent to which they guided observers' choices, whereas various types of inorganic visual cues were consistently less effective than conspecifics. This was also true in a transfer test where bees were confronted with a novel flower type. However, in the transfer test, conspecifics were slightly more effective than heterospecific demonstrators. We then repeated the experiment with entirely naïve bees that had never foraged alongside conspecifics before. In this case, heterospecific demonstrators were equally efficient as conspecifics both in the initial learning task and the transfer test. Our findings demonstrate that social learning is not a unique process limited to conspecifics and that through associative learning, interspecifically sourced information can be just as valuable as that provided by conspecific individuals. Furthermore the results of this study highlight potential implications for understanding competition within natural pollinator communities.