Consistent Interindividual Differences in Discrimination Performance by Bumblebees in Colour, Shape and Odour Learning Tasks (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombus terrestris)

MULLER H & CHITTKA L (Biol Chem Sci, Queen Mary University of London, London, E1 4NS) Consistent Interindividual Differences in Discrimination Performance by Bumblebees in Colour, Shape and Odour Learning Tasks (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Bombus terrestris). - Entomol Gener 34(1/2): 001-008; Stuttgart 2012-09. - [Article] The ability to discriminate between flower-related stimuli is essential to bumblebees foraging in a natural environment, given the variety of flower features and profitability. Using differential conditioning tasks in a foraging context, it turns out that some individual bumblebees (Bombus terrestris Linnaeus 1758) were consistently better than others at discriminating rewarding from punishing stimuli across modalities (visual or olfactory) or dimension (colour or shape) of the cues used. The size of the bees did not have a significant effect on the individuals' discrimination abilities but there was a significant difference between the two colonies tested. Bees therefore appeared to differ in their ability to discriminate between stimuli both individually and at the colony level. The here presented results have implications for the study of insect cognition as well as for the study of bees' foraging behaviour and task specialisation in social insects.