Data from: Larval pheromones act as colony-wide regulators of collective foraging behavior in honey bees

When animals move or forage in groups, collective behaviors arise from independent decisions that individuals make based on limited information about the environment. In decentralized systems in which individuals use local cues to decide how to allocate their time amongst multiple tasks, a “global” signal detectable over large distances by all members of the group could have a profound effect on task allocation and coordination. Honey bees provide a unique opportunity to study how information transfer modulates behavior because they produce pheromones that can regulate the actions of thousands of individuals in a colony. We used electrophysiological and behavioral assays to compare the transmission modes of two larval pheromones to test the hypothesis that larval pheromones can act as “global” signals by rapidly regulating behavior throughout a colony without direct physical interactions between individuals. By studying mechanisms of pheromone transmission at the individual and colony level, we provide evidence that larval pheromones act as direct rapid and powerful regulators of behavior, even among individuals too far away from each other to use visual or tactile cues. Therefore, our results suggest that in some cases, global signals can be important regulators of collective behavior.

当动物以群体形式移动或觅食时，集体行为源于个体基于有限环境信息所做出的独立决策。在去中心化系统中，个体依靠局部线索来决策如何在多项任务间分配自身时间，此时一种可被群体所有成员在远距离范围内探测到的‘全局信号’，可能会对任务分配与协调产生深远影响。蜜蜂为探究信息传递如何调控行为提供了绝佳研究模型，因其可分泌信息素来调控蜂群内数千只个体的行为。本研究通过电生理检测与行为学实验，对比两种幼虫信息素的传递模式，旨在验证如下假说：幼虫信息素可在无需个体间直接物理接触的前提下，通过快速调控全蜂群的行为，充当‘全局信号’。通过在个体与蜂群层级探究信息素传递的机制，本研究证实：即便个体间距离过远，无法借助视觉或触觉线索进行交流，幼虫信息素仍可作为直接、快速且高效的行为调控因子。综上，本研究结果表明，在部分场景中，全局信号可作为集体行为的重要调控因子。