Social insects like honeybees exhibit a surprising range of behaviors, from cooperatively building structurally complex nests (complete with built-in climate control) to practical division of labor within communities. . Biologists have traditionally viewed these behaviors as preprogrammed responses that evolved over generations in response to external factors. But two of his papers last week reported results indicating that social learning may also play a role.
The first study, published in PLoS Biology, showed that bumblebees can learn to solve simple puzzles by watching experienced mates. A second paper, published in the journal Science, describes how honeybees learn to perform their trademark “waggle dance” to tell other bees in the colony where to find food and other resources. reported evidence of social learning. Taken together, both studies add to growing evidence of a sort of ‘culture’ among social insects like honeybees.
“Culture can be broadly defined as behaviors acquired through social learning and maintained within a population over time, essentially functioning as a ‘second form of inheritance’, although most research has focused on relatively large Primates, cetaceans, and passerine birds, which are species with brains,” said co-author Alice Bridges. He is a graduate student at Queen Mary University in London and works in the lab of co-author Lars Titka. “I particularly wanted to study bumblebees because they are perfect models for social learning experiments. It has been shown before that it can be learned.”
Ever since Charles Darwin observed bumblebees performing “nectar-stealing” activities in 1884, scientists have recognized the amazing social learning abilities of bumblebee creatures. all kinds. According to a theory of evolution called the Baldwin effect, certain beneficial behavioral traits acquired by an organism during its lifetime are passed on to its offspring through natural selection.Thor Bridges othersWe decided to explore the possibility that social learning contributed to the unique behavioral innovation of bumblebees (ground bomb), not purely instinctive.
As previously reported, Chitka’s group conducted a 2017 study showing that bees can be trained to roll a small wooden ball to receive a reward. However, the group also noted instances where bees chose to roll the ball even when there was no apparent reward or benefit. rice field. A few bees walked over the ball or stopped on their way back from food to roll it. The group wondered if this was genuine play behavior.
Chittka’s lab published a follow-up study last year that reported observing authentic play behavior in honeybees photographed rolling a small colored wooden ball. (Many animals are known to engage in play, but usually cerebral mammals and birds.) It strongly indicates that
The idea of using a two-option puzzle-box experiment to explore social learning arose from previous work on chimpanzees (2005) and tits (2015). For the bees, Chitka Institute designed a puzzle box that can be opened by rotating the clear lid, either by pressing the red tab clockwise or by pressing the blue tab counterclockwise. This allows the bees to collect a delicious reward of 50% sucrose solution.
The bee opens the puzzle box by pressing the red tab and rotating the box lid clockwise. Credit: AD Bridges and others.2023/CC-BY 4.0
Demonstrator bees were trained to perform one of the two solution behaviors and then added to a group of untrained bees. All bees were allowed to forage freely among the puzzle boxes, and their behavior was monitored so that demonstrator bees repeatedly “solved” the puzzle boxes until their behavior changed the group’s behavior. Checked to see if it spread to the rest. There was also a control group with no demonstrator bees.
“We wanted to see if bumblebees could learn new, unnatural behaviors through social learning under open diffusion conditions,” Bridges said. “In particular, we were interested in whether we could learn variations of this behavior that are unique to trained demonstrators in the same way that these larger brain species can learn.”
That’s exactly what happened. Foraging bees in colonies with demonstrator bees opened significantly more puzzle boxes than control bees and used ‘taught’ solutions 98% of the time. This suggests that the behavior was socially learned.In follow-up experiments with multiple bees, each taught a different solution to the puzzle, untrained bees first tried both methods. but over time, like popular fads and trends, preferences for one or the other developed randomly.
Of the two control colonies, only one bee learned how to open the puzzle box. We can say that they are “voluntary learners”, but their ability to do so is low, and they have opened far fewer boxes than the bees in the colony with the demonstrator. A longer-running second-round experiment yielded a few spontaneous learners, who also had lower proficiency. However, one of his spontaneously learning bees was overkill, as he recorded 216 box openings during the course of the experiment. His closest rival in the control group, he opened only 22 boxes in the same period. In contrast, the trained demonstrator bees were foraging experts, regularly opening over 100 puzzle boxes each day.
This finding is consistent with previous studies on chimpanzees and tits, where the authors argued that such social learning indicates cultural competence in those species. “Bumblebees are not known to exhibit culture-like phenomena in the wild,” Bridges said. I was also surprised at how flexible and innovative it was.The fact that some bees have learned to open the box on their own is truly amazing and definitely suggests that bees may come. We will catch up with other new behaviors in the wild as the opportunity and need arise.”
Further research into bumblebee nectar-scavenging behavior may shed further light on the underlying mechanisms. But is this socially-learned behavior passed on to the next generation? “Our experimental bumblebees form colonies that last for a single biological generation before collapsing, whereas honeybees, stingless bees, and some Tropical bumblebees form colonies that last for years,” Bridges said. .”
waggle waggle
A bee performs a gesture dance. Credit: Shihao Dong et al., 2023
That’s where a second study of the bee waggle dance comes in. Co-author of this study. “Our new study shows that such social learning can be extended to include insects. Honeybees are highly intelligent and capable of doing amazing things.” we know.”
Bees use the waggle dance to tell other bees where to find important resources such as food, water, tree resin, and nest locations. It has to be shaken and is done at a very fast pace. A bee can travel the length of her whole body in less than a second. The longer the woggle run, the longer the distance, and the woggle direction angle indicates the direction. The quality of the resource in question is encoded in the number of repetitions of the waggle run and how quickly each dancing bee returns to repeat the next run.
for nie othersAlthough there is a strong genetic component to bee waggle dancing behavior, the team hypothesized that novice dancers could learn from experienced waggle dancers to improve their communication skills with fellow bees. Workers begin tracking waggle-dancing foragers at about eight days of age, and begin dancing themselves at 12 days, usually following the same “routine” as the old bees they shadowed. othersThey thought that if the bees were raised unable to keep up with older dancers, the first early waggle dance would increase communication errors. Housed and monitored for the emergence of waggle-dancing behavior, along with mixed control colonies with older, experienced bee dancers.
The results supported their hypothesis. The bees’ initial waggle dance, which failed to chase the older, more experienced forager bees, was riddled with errors regarding the direction and distance of the precious resource. Bees in mixed-control colonies gained valuable social cues from following experienced dancers, so the first dance was much more accurate. That social knowledge stayed with them throughout their lives.
Essentially, untrained bees have developed their own distant dialect. “Scientists believe that bee dialects are shaped by the local environment,” said Nee. “If so, it makes sense that the colonies would transmit dialects that were well adapted to this environment.” We believe this suggests that learning shapes signaling in honeybees.
“It is at least plausible that there could be local ‘cultures’ of nuanced, socially acquired dance languages that depend on the visual characteristics of the landscape and the spatial distribution of food sources,” he said. Titka and Natasha Rossi (at Brighton, University of Sussex) write in the accompanying commentary.They cited a 2008 study showing that one species of honeybee learned to read another species’ distance codes and chitkas. othersAn original study of playful ball-rolling in bees. “Thus, some of their most advanced behavioral innovations (including elements of dance language) emerged, at least in part, from individual innovation and subsequent social learning, becoming instinctive later in evolution. There is a possibility.”
DOI: Science, 2023. 10.1126/science.ade1702 (About DOI).
DOI: PLoS Biology, 2023. 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002019 (About DOI).
