summary: Bumblebees can learn to solve puzzles by watching more experienced bees complete a task. This new behavioral preference then spreads throughout the entire colony. Bees that learned from others became more skilled and began to prefer learned solutions over alternatives.
source: Plus
Bumblebees learn to solve a puzzle by watching more experienced bees, and then this behavioral preference spreads throughout the colony, according to a study published March 7.y In Open Access Journal Biology PLUS By Alice Dorothy Bridges and colleagues at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Social animals such as primates are skilled at learning by watching others, and previous work has shown that individual bees can learn tasks in this way, but it remained unclear whether these new behaviors would then spread through the colony.
To investigate, the researchers tested six colonies of bees (Bombus terrestris) using a puzzle box that can be opened by rotating the lid to access the sugar solution. The bees can turn the cap either clockwise or counterclockwise by pushing one of two different colored tabs.
The researchers trained the bees to use one of these two solutions and then released these “pretend” bees into the foraging yard along with untrained bees and filmed them over the course of six to twelve days.
Foraging bees with a demonstrator opened more puzzle boxes than control bees, and used the same puzzle solution learned by the demonstrator 98% of the time, indicating that they learned the behavior socially rather than stumbling upon a solution themselves.
In experiments in which several demonstrators were taught a different solution to a puzzle, the untrained bees initially learned to use both methods, but over time they randomly developed a preference for one solution or the other, which then dominated that colony.
This study is the first to document the prevalence of different behavioral approaches to solving the same problem in bees. The authors say the findings provide strong evidence that social learning is important for the transmission of new behaviors through bumblebee colonies, as has been shown previously in primates and birds.
Bridges adds, “These results in bumblebees, which are invertebrates with tiny brains, mirror those found previously using similar experiments in primates and birds—which were used to demonstrate the ability of those species to farm.”
Funding: This study was funded by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Program Grant, ‘Minds on Board’ (Ref No. EP/P006094/1 to LC) and a PhD Scholarship at Queen Mary University of London (to AB). Funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, publication decision, or manuscript preparation.
About this research in Neuroscience News
author: Claire Turner
source: Plus
communication: Claire Turner – Plus
picture: Image credit to Diego Perez-Lopez, PLOS (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Original search: open access.
“Bumblebees acquire alternative puzzle box solutions via social learningBy Alice Dorothy Bridges et al. Biology PLUS
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Bumblebees acquire alternative puzzle box solutions via social learning
The astonishing behavioral repertoire of social insects is thought to be largely innate, but these insects have repeatedly demonstrated remarkable abilities for both individual and social learning. bee use Bombus terrestris As a model, we developed a two-choice puzzle-box task and used open diffusion models to monitor transmission of novel, abnormal foraging behaviors through the population.
The box-opening behavior was propagated through colonies seeded with a demonstrator trained to perform one of two possible behavioral variants, and the observers acquired the demonstrated variant. This preference persisted among observers even when the alternative technique was discovered.
In control diffusion experiments lacking a demonstrator, some bees automatically opened puzzle boxes but were significantly less efficient than those that learned in the presence of a demonstrator. This suggests that social learning was crucial to getting the box opened correctly.
Additional open-diffusion trials ended up where two behavioral variables were initially present in similar proportions with one variable becoming dominant, due to random processes.
We discuss whether these findings, which replicate those in primates and birds, may indicate the ability of bumblebees to culture.
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