Classical olfactory conditioning promotes long-term memory and improves odor-cued flight orientation in the South American native bumblebee Bombus pauloensis

NERY, DENISE; PALOTTINI, FLORENCIA; FARINA, WALTER M

Current Zoology

Oxford University press

Año: 2020

1674-5507

Our study deepens the knowledge of the cognitive abilities of theSouth American bumblebee B. pauloensis. We show that workers ofthis species, when trained under the PER conditioning paradigm,can learn an odor regardless of its identity and the memories can berecalled 24 and 48 h later correctly. We also found that this bumblebeecan evoke an associative memory acquired in a classical context,in an operant 1 where they have to choose between the learnt and anovel odor. Summarizing, the bumblebees still make the same choiceindependently of the testing context. Bumblebees were not only ableto choose the correct flower (learnt odor) at the FC, some of themalso extended their proboscises when doing so.