蜜蜂更喜欢含尼古丁的花
Bumblebees sought out flowers with nicotine in their nectar, and the drug appeared to enhance the bees’ memories. Christopher Intagliata reports.
大黄蜂寻找花蜜中含有尼古丁的花，同时这种药物似乎能够增强蜜蜂记忆力。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。
撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）
翻译：郭鑫鹏
审校：杨枭
We humans enjoy coffee and tea, to give our brains a caffeine boost. And bees sometimes sip nectar that naturally contains caffeine, which seems to enhance their memory. Now a study suggests that bees enjoy another familiar drug produced by plants: nicotine.
我们人类喜欢用咖啡和茶来给大脑以咖啡因的刺激。而蜜蜂有时也采集那些自然中含有咖啡因的花蜜，这似乎能增强它们的记忆力。现在，一项研究表明蜜蜂也会喜欢采用植物产生的另一种相似药物：尼古丁。
“As it turns out, not just in humans, but even the bees seem to have difficulties quitting.” Lars Chittka, a professor of behavioral and sensory ecology at Queen Mary University of London.
“结果表明，不只是人类，蜜蜂也很难戒掉（尼古丁）。”伦敦玛丽女王大学行为与感官生态学教授拉斯·切卡（Lars Chittka）说。
Chittka and his colleagues studied bumblebees as they visited fake flowers that contained varying levels of nicotine. Unnaturally high nicotine concentrations deterred the bees. But at real-world levels, the drug attracted bees. And they even learned a flower’s color faster, if that flower offered a nicotine fix.
切卡和他的同事们给假花施以不同浓度的尼古丁，并研究了采集这些假花的大黄蜂。超出自然水平的高浓度尼古丁并不受蜜蜂欢迎，但是自然水平浓度的这些药物却吸引着蜜蜂。对于那些提供尼古丁的花，蜜蜂甚至能够更快地识别其颜色。
Sometimes bees paid a steep price for this preference. “They returned actually to flowers that had previously sold them nicotine, so to speak, even if these flowers no longer contained nectar.”
然而，有时蜜蜂会为它们的这种偏好付出很大的代价。“它们只回访那些之前给它们提供了尼古丁的花，即使这些花已不再含有花蜜。”
Which might give nicotine-pushing plants, like tobacco, an edge. “It provides these plant species with an unfair advantage over competing plants, because they can retain the faithful services of pollinators, even if they’re offering suboptimal nectar in this case.”
这会为像烟草那种提供尼古丁的植物提供巨大的优势。“它让这些植物物种相对于它们的竞争者们有着不公平的优势，因为它们能够有一批忠实的授粉者，即使它们提供的花蜜并不是最好的。”
The results are in the journal Scientific reports. [D. Baracchi et al., Nicotine in floral nectar pharmacologically influences bumblebee learning of floral features]
这项研究结果发表在期刊《科学报告》上。
And if caffeine and nicotine have these effects on bees? Perhaps natural floral pharmacies stock other drugs too-that enhance pollination, and give bees a buzz.
如果咖啡因和尼古丁能给蜜蜂造成如此效果，会怎样呢？自然界的花中可能还包含着其他药物——这些药物同样可以加强授粉，并让蜜蜂兴奋。
-Christopher Intagliata
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京ICP备11000850号-1
京公网安备11010502039775号 信息网络传播视听节目许可证0111611号
国家科技基础条件平台