‘Personality’ in bumblebees: individual consistency in responses to novel colours?

Muller, Helene; Großmann, Heiko; Chittka, Lars

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.09.016

Cited by 32 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…individuals mostly visit the actually most rewarding resource), and long-term generalists (i.e. butterflies are able to switch among plant species according to resource profitability) (Lewis 1986, Warburton et al 1998, Muller et al 2010, Fodrie et al 2015, Brosi 2016. Thus, we suggest that the Clouded Apollo is a sequential specialist species (Warburton et al 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Although resource use decision made by individuals is well known, spatio-temporal changes in resource use during the individuals' lifetime have rarely been studied in nature and little is known about the intra-specific variation in insect resource use (Muller et al 2010, Tremmel and Müller 2013, Kralj-Fišer and Schuett 2014. Relationships between flower visitation and floral resource availability are widely discussed (Hegland et al 2009, Blüthgen and Klein 2011, Brosi 2016, however, mainly observed at relatively large spatio-temporal scales (Potts et al 2004, Hines and Hendrix 2005, Cusser and Goodell 2013, but see Tur et al 2014, Valverde et al 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lifelong foraging and individual specialisation are influenced by temporal changes of resource availability

Szigeti

Kőrösi

Harnos

et al. 2018

Oikos

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Resource availability largely determines the distribution and behaviour of organisms. In plant–pollinator communities, availability of floral resources may change so rapidly that pollinator individuals can benefit from switching between multiple resources, i.e. different flowering plant species. Insect pollinator individuals of a given generation often occur in different time windows during the reproductive season. This temporal variation in individual occurrences, together with the rapidly changing resource availability, may lead individuals of the same population to encounter and use different resources, resulting in an apparent individual specialisation. We hypothesized, that 1) individual pollinators change their resource use (flower visitation) during their lifetime according to the changing availability of floral resources, and that 2) temporal variation in individual occurrences of pollinators and in resource availability will partly explain individual specialisation. To test these hypotheses, we observed flower visitations of individually marked clouded Apollo butterflies Parnassius mnemosyne during one reproductive season. We found temporal changes in lifetime individual resource use that followed the changes in resource availability, indicating that butterflies can adjust foraging to varying resource availability. Individuals differed considerably in their resource use. This variation was partly explained by temporal variation in both floral resource availability and temporal occurrence of individual butterflies. We suggest the butterfly as a sequential specialist, i.e. short‐term specialist and long‐term generalist. This foraging plasticity can be essential for short‐living insect pollinators in rapidly changing environments. Although flowering dynamics do not fully explain the variability in foraging, our results highlight the importance of temporal dimension in resource use studies. Ultimately, the relative pace of environmental change compared to individual lifespan may be a key factor in resource use plasticity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lifelong foraging and individual specialisation are influenced by temporal changes of resource availability

Szigeti

Kőrösi

Harnos

et al. 2018

Oikos

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This finding resembles those of some studies showing 'episodic personality' in other species. The preference levels for new colours of flowers in bumblebees, and foraging and response to threat and novel objects in the gloomy octopus, were repeatable only for a short time (Muller et al, 2010;Pronk et al, 2010). Shade preference, in contrast to activity-related traits, was highly repeatable in our experiment, and is probably more strongly selected for than other traits in wormlions.…”

Section: Behavioural Repeatability Of Wormlion Larvaementioning

confidence: 49%

“…This finding resembles those of some studies showing ‘episodic personality’ in other species. The preference levels for new colours of flowers in bumblebees, and foraging and response to threat and novel objects in the gloomy octopus, were repeatable only for a short time (Muller et al ., ; Pronk et al ., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitat preference of wormlions and their behavioural repeatability under illumination/shade conditions

Katz

Subach

Pruitt

et al. 2016

Ecological Entomology

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1. Animal personality is defined as the repeatable between‐individual differences in behaviour over time and contexts. Some personality traits, such as activity or aggression, have received much attention while other behaviours, such as habitat preference or learning, have been neglected. 2. Wormlion larvae are sit‐and‐wait dipteran predators that inhabit shaded microhabitats in the field and also prefer shade in the laboratory. The aim of the present study was to examine wormlion larvae behavioural repeatability in general and specifically in the context of habitat preference. In order to achieve this, three experiments were conducted to determine whether, to what extent and under which conditions wormlion preference for shaded microhabitats is repeatable. 3. Individual tendency to relocate when the environment conditions deteriorate was also assessed, by switching between shaded and illuminated conditions, either with or without pit destruction. 4. Larvae showed a highly repeatable preference for shade. Repeatability was detected in additional behavioural traits: pit construction, pit area and tendency to relocate. 5. This behavioural repeatability was demonstrated under constant microhabitat conditions, with distinct behaviours in each setting. Under constant illumination, wormlions constructed smaller pits, moved over longer distances and were found at the tray edges more frequently than under constant shade conditions, suggesting that illuminated environments are perceived as risky or unsuitable. 6. Switching between the two microhabitat conditions without pit destruction induced fewer relocations than switching with pit destruction, suggesting that wormlions do not tend to abandon their pits, even if their microhabitat conditions deteriorate.

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“…This type of 378 motivational-based exploration may also account for why bees eventually changed to a win-379 stay/lose-switch strategy. Figure S2 shows a large variability between individuals in second 380 choice performance, and therefore individual differences in motivation and attention may have 381 played a part in why second choice performance was lower than expected [41,42]. However, 382 many of the bees did show an improvement in their second choices from the first 10 bouts to the 383 second ten bouts.…”

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confidence: 96%

Bumblebees learn a relational rule but switch to a win-stay/lose-switch heuristic after extensive training

MaBouDi

Perry

Chittka

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

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Mapping animal performance in a behavioural task to underlying cognitive mechanisms and strategies is rarely straightforward, since a task may be solvable in more than one manner. Here, we show that bumblebees perform well on a concept-based visual discrimination task, but spontaneously switch from a concept-based solution to a simpler heuristic with extended training, all while continually increasing performance. Bumblebees were trained in an arena to find reward on displays with shapes of different sizes where they could not use low-level visual cues. One group of bees was rewarded at displays with bigger shapes and another group at displays with smaller shapes. Analysis of total choices shows bees increased their performance over 30 bouts to above chance. However, analyses of first and sequential choices suggest that after approximately 20 bouts, bumblebees changed to a win-stay/lose-switch strategy. Comparing bees’ behaviour to a probabilistic model based on a win-stay/lose-switch strategy further supports the idea that bees changed strategies with extensive training. Analyses of unrewarded tests indicate bumblebees learned and retained the concept of relative size even after they had already switched to a win-stay, lost-shift strategy. We propose that the reason for this strategy switching may be due to cognitive flexibility and efficiency.

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‘Personality’ in bumblebees: individual consistency in responses to novel colours?

Cited by 32 publications

References 38 publications

Lifelong foraging and individual specialisation are influenced by temporal changes of resource availability

Lifelong foraging and individual specialisation are influenced by temporal changes of resource availability

Habitat preference of wormlions and their behavioural repeatability under illumination/shade conditions

Bumblebees learn a relational rule but switch to a win-stay/lose-switch heuristic after extensive training

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