手机APP下载

您现在的位置: 首页 > 在线广播 > 科学美国人 > 科学美国人地球系列 > 正文

科学美国人60秒:蜜蜂通过味道对花粉进行排名

来源:可可英语 编辑:aimee   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet
 下载MP3到电脑  批量下载MP3和LRC到手机
加载中..
EY~qMU#FgEFcyYWG[

oSAvRk#1Bs9A

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
Walk through Times Square—you're bombarded with advertising. And it turns out, a bumblebee might have a similar feeling, buzzing through a field of flowers. "So these flowers are these billboards, they're advertising a good, this delicious nectar reward, and bees are very picky shoppers." Anne Leonard, a pollination biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno.
She describes a flower field as a sort of pollination marketplace. And one way bees choose where to visit? "Bees are nectar experts. They are really good at assessing even really small differences in the sugar concentration of nectar." They also scope out the shape and size of the flowers, and their color and scent. And now Leonard and her colleagues have discovered that bumblebees are pollen aficionados, too.
They found that out by lacing batches of cherry pollen with either table sugar or bitter quinine. And to display the pollen to bees, "We got really into it—we started 3-D printing flowers in our lab." And for the anther—the male flower part, which presents the pollen—pipe cleaners. "So we bought out Michael's craft store supplies of these pipe cleaners and used them in our experiments."

L4R6V)N&+#W!Dp

蜜蜂采蜜.jpg

Y(IelDHry2g#Tj7

Turns out bees would return again and again to the same color flower that dispensed sweet pollen, and spend more time collecting there. But when confronted with the bitter pollen? They sought a different colored flower for their very next stop. All of which suggests that, in addition to savoring nectar, bees taste pollen too—and judge flowers by it. The results are in the journal Biology Letters.
The finding means that plants have to find a happy medium: "So can you make your pollen attractive enough that the bees will collect it, but distasteful enough that they won't collect too much of it?" And that balancing act, of carefully calibrated chemistry—it's just one of the many transactions that plays out in the buzzing pollination marketplace. Where the object is to make a sweet profit.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

;MM&ct*T=K

JIJce9yojfc;MnN^=%u

~^-U!doKE#erGeYPev4ohYp7jIxWR-tnr%%7cRAkQK

重点单词   查看全部解释    
pollen ['pɔlin]

想一想再看

n. [植]花粉,[昆]粉面(双翅目昆虫的易落粉) vt

 
imaginary [i'mædʒinəri]

想一想再看

adj. 想象的,虚构的

联想记忆
craft [krɑ:ft]

想一想再看

n. 工艺,手艺,狡诈,航空器,行会成员
vt

 
pollination [pɔli'neiʃn]

想一想再看

n. 授粉

 
concentration [.kɔnsen'treiʃən]

想一想再看

n. 集中,专心,浓度

 
confrontation [.kɔnfrʌn'teiʃən]

想一想再看

n. 对审,面对面,面对

 
medium ['mi:diəm]

想一想再看

n. 媒体,方法,媒介
adj. 适中的,中等

联想记忆
conductor [kən'dʌktə]

想一想再看

n. 售票员,导体,指挥

联想记忆
turmoil ['tə:mɔil]

想一想再看

n. 骚动,混乱

联想记忆
attractive [ə'træktiv]

想一想再看

adj. 有吸引力的,引起注意的

联想记忆

发布评论我来说2句

    最新文章

    可可英语官方微信(微信号:ikekenet)

    每天向大家推送短小精悍的英语学习资料.

    添加方式1.扫描上方可可官方微信二维码。
    添加方式2.搜索微信号ikekenet添加即可。