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Male bumblebees perform learning flights on leaving a flower but not when leaving their nest

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 08:59 authored by Theo Robert, Elisa Frasnelli, Thomas Collett, Natalie Hempel De Ibarra
Female bees and wasps demonstrate, through their performance of elaborate learning flights,when they memorise features of a significant site. An important feature of these flights is that the insects look back to fixate the site that they are leaving. Females, which forage for nectar and pollen and return with it to the nest, execute learning flights on their initial departures from both their nest and newly discovered flowers. To our knowledge, these flights have so far only been studied in females. Here we describe and analyse putative learning flights observed in male bumblebees, Bombus terrestris L. Once male bumblebees are mature, they leave their nest for good and fend for themselves. We show that, unlike female foragers,males always flew directly away from their nest, without looking back, in keeping with their indifference to their natal nest. In contrast, after males had drunk from artificial flowers, their flights on first leaving the flowers resembled the learning flights of females, particularly in their fixations of the flowers. These differences in the occurrence of female and male learning flights seem to match the diverse needs of the two sexes to learn about ecologically relevant aspects of their environment.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Current Biology

ISSN

0960-9822

Publisher

Elsevier

Issue

15

Volume

26

Page range

930-937

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-11-23

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-11-23

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