Copy-when-uncertain: bumblebees rely on social information when rewards are highly variable.
To understand the relative benefits of social and personal information use in foraging decisions, we developed an agent-based model of social learning that predicts social information should be more adaptive where resources are highly variable and personal information where resources vary little. We tested our predictions with bumblebees and found that foragers relied more on social information when resources were variable than when they were not. We then investigated whether socially salient cues are used preferentially over non-social ones in variable environments. Although bees clearly used social cues in highly variable environments, under the same conditions they did not use non-social cues. These results suggest that bumblebees use a 'copy-when-uncertain' strategy.
Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK marco.smolla@manchester.ac.uk.
Marco
0000-0001-6367-8765
M
Smolla
Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Sylvain
S
Alem
Department of Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
Lars
L
Chittka
Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Susanne
S
Shultz
D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D001245:Association Learning; D001516:Bees / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D035264:Flowers; D012919:Social Behavior; D035501:Uncertainty
bumblebees; foraging; resource distribution; social cue; social information; social learning