title: Colour learning when foraging for nectar and pollen: bees learn two colours at once.
abstract: Bees are model organisms for the study of learning and memory, yet nearly all such research to date has used a single reward, nectar. Many bees collect both nectar (carbohydrates) and pollen (protein) on a single foraging bout, sometimes from different plant species. We tested whether individual bumblebees could learn colour associations with nectar and pollen rewards simultaneously in a foraging scenario where one floral type offered only nectar and the other only pollen. We found that bees readily learned multiple reward-colour associations, and when presented with novel floral targets generalized to colours similar to those trained for each reward type. These results expand the ecological significance of work on bee learning and raise new questions regarding the cognitive ecology of pollination.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA felicitymuth@hotmail.co.uk.
authors.forename: Felicity
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Muth
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, AZ 85721, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Papaj
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA.
authors.forename: Anne S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Leonard
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003116:Color; D003463:Cues; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D007858:Learning; D057048:Plant Nectar; D011058:Pollen; D012201:Reward
chemical_list: D057048:Plant Nectar
keywords: Bombus; foraging; learning; pollen