Abstract
Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) are attracted to those particular inflorescences where other bees are already foraging, a process known as local enhancement. Here, we use a quantitative analysis of learning in a foraging task to illustrate that this attraction can lead bees to learn more quickly which flower species are rewarding if they forage in the company of experienced conspecifics. This effect can also be elicited by model bees, rather than live demonstrators. We also show that local enhancement in bumblebees most likely reflects a general attraction to conspecifics that is not limited to a foraging context. Based on the widespread occurrence of both local enhancement and associative learning in the invertebrates, we suggest that social influences on learning in this group may be more common than the current literature would suggest and that invertebrates may provide a useful model for understanding how learning processes based on social information evolve.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Atkins CK, Zentall TR (1996) Imitative learning in male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) using the two-action method. J Comp Psychol 110:316–320
Banschbach VS (1994) Colour association influences honey bee choice between sucrose concentrations. J Comp Physiol A Sens Neural Behav Physiol 175:107–114
Beauchamp G, Belilse M, Giraldeau LA (1997) Influence of conspecific attraction on the spatial distribution of learning foragers in a patchy habitat. J Anim Ecol 66:671–682
Boyd R, Richerson P (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Brian AD (1957) Differences in the flowers visited by four species of bumble-bees and their causes. J Anim Ecol 26:71–98
Chittka L (1992) The color hexagon—a chromaticity diagram based on photoreceptor excitations as a generalized representation of color opponency. J Comp Physiol A Sens Neural Behav Physiol 170:533–543
Chittka L, Briscoe A (2001) Why sensory ecology needs to become more evolutionary—insect color vision as a case in point. In: Barth FG, Schmid A (eds) Ecology of sensing. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 19–37
Chittka L, Leadbeater E (2005) Social learning: public information in insects. Curr Biol 15:R869–R871
Chittka L, Wells H (2004) Colour vision in bees: mechanisms, ecology and evolution. In: Prete F (ed) How simple nervous systems create complex perceptual worlds. MIT, Boston, pp 165–191
Chittka L, Ings TC, Raine NE (2004) Chance and adaptation in the evolution of island bumblebee behaviour. Popul Ecol 46:243–251
Coolen I, Dangles O, Casas J (2005) Social learning in noncolonial insects? Curr Biol 15:1931–1935
D’Adamo P, Lozada M, Corley J (2003) Conspecifics enhance attraction of Vespula germanica foragers to food baits. Behaviour 96:685–688
Dawson BV, Foss BM (1965) Observational learning in budgerigars. Anim Behav 4:222–232
Dukas R (2006) Learning in the context of sexual behaviour in insects. Anim Biol 56:125–141
Galef BJ (1988) Imitation in animals: history, definitions and interpretation of the data from the psychological laboratory. In: Zentall T, Galef BJ (eds) Social learning: psychological and biological perspectives. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp 3–28
Galef BJ (1995) Why behaviour patterns that animals learn socially are adaptive. Anim Behav 49:1325–1334
Galef BJ, Giraldeau L (2001) Social influences on foraging in vertebrates: causal mechanisms and adaptive functions. Anim Behav 61:3–15
Giurfa M (2003) The amazing mini-brain: lessons from a honey bee. Bee World 84:5–18
Giurfa M, Nunez J, Chittka L, Menzel R (1995) Colour preferences of flower-naive honeybees. J Comp Physiol A Sens Neural Behav Physiol 177:247–259
Giurfa M, Zhang S, Jenett A, Menzel R, Srinivasan MV (2001) The concepts of ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ in an insect. Nature 410:930–933
Heinrich B (1977) Laboratory analysis of flower constancy in foraging bumblebees: Bombus terinanus and B. terricola. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2:247–265
Heinrich B (1979) Resource heterogeneity and patterns of movement in foraging bumblebees. Oecologia 40:234–245
Heyes C (1994) Social learning in animals: categories and mechanisms. Biol Rev 69:207–231
Heyes C, Galef BJ (1996) Social learning and the roots of culture. Academic
Heyes C, Ray E, Mitchell C, Nokes T (2000) Stimulus enhancement: controls for social facilitation and local enhancement. Learn Motiv 31:83–98
Kawaguchi LG, Ohashi K, Toquenaga Y (2006) Do bumble bees save time when choosing novel flowers by following conspecifics? Funct Ecol 20:239–244
Kelber A (2002) Pattern discrimination in a hawkmoth: innate preferences, learning performance and ecology. Proc R Soc Lond B 269:2573–2577
Kendal RL, Coolen I, van Bergen Y, Laland KN (2005) Trade-offs in the adaptive use of social and asocial learning. Adv Study Behav 35:333–379
Leadbeater E, Chittka L (2005) A new mode of information transfer in foraging bumblebees? Curr Biol 15:R447–R448
Lehrer M, Horridge GA, Zhang SW, Gadagkar R (1995) Shape vision in bees: innate preference for flower-like patterns. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 347:123–137; 1
Lunau K, Maier EJ (1995) Innate colour preferences of flower visitors. J Comp Physiol A Sens Neural Behav Physiol 177:1–19
Menzel R (1985) Learning in honey bees in an ecological and behavioral context. Fortschr Zool 31:55–74
Menzel R, Shmida A (1993) The ecology of flower colours and the natural colour vision of insect pollinators: the Israeli flora as a case study. Biol Rev 6:262–293
Menzel R, Leboulle G, Eisenhardt D (2006) Small brains, bright minds. Cell 124:237–239
Otis GW, Locke B, McKenzie NG, Cheung D, MacLeod E, Careless P, Kwoon A (2006) Local enhancement in mud-puddling swallowtail butterflies (Battus philenor and Papilio glaucus). J Insect Behav V19:685–698
Prokopy RJ, Roitberg B (2001) Joining and avoidance behaviour in nonsocial insects. Annu Rev Entomol 46:631–665
Raine NE, Ings TC, Dornhaus A, Saleh N, Chittka L (2006) Adaptation, genetic drift, pleiotropy, and history in the evolution of bee foraging behavior. Adv Study Behav 36:305–354
Raveret Richter M (2000) Social wasp foraging behaviour. Annu Rev Entomol 45:121–150
Schmitt U, Lubke G, Francke W (1991) Tarsal secretion marks food sources in bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Chemoecology 2:35–40
Slaa JE, Wassenberg J, Biesmeijer JC (2003) The use of field-based social information in eusocial foragers: local enhancement among nestmates and heterospecifics in stingless bees. Ecol Entomol 28:369–371
Sontag C, Wilson DS, Wilcox RS (2006) Social foraging in Bufo americanus tadpoles. Anim Behav 72:1451–1456
Spence KW (1937) Experimental studies of learning and higher mental processes in infra-human primates. Psychol Bull 34:806–850
Thorpe WH (1956) Learning and instinct in animals. Methuen, London
Whiten A (1998) Imitation of the sequential structure of actions by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J Comp Psychol 112:270–281
Whiten A, Ham R (1992) On the nature and evolution of imitation in the animal kingdom—reappraisal of a century of research. Adv Study Behav 21:239–283
Worden BD, Papaj DR (2005) Flower choice copying in bumblebees. Biol Lett 1:504–507
Zentall T, Galef BJ (1988) Social learning: psychological and biological perspectives. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ
Acknowledgments
We thank Rachel Sitts for help with data collection, Rob Knell for statistical advice, and two anonymous referees for comments on the manuscript. All experiments comply with current UK legislation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by M. Giurfa
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Leadbeater, E., Chittka, L. The dynamics of social learning in an insect model, the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 61, 1789–1796 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0412-4
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0412-4