ASSOCIATIVE AND NON ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING OF POLLEN AND NECTAR FORAGING BEES APIS MELLIFERA CHANGE ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF REWARD

EMILIA MORENO; ANDRÉS ARENAS

Encuentro; IV Reunión de Biología del Comportamiento del Cono Sur; 2023

Social insects live in communities whose cooperative actions depend to a large extent on the individual cognitive abilities of each of its members. Among foragers of the honey bee Apis mellifera, specialization for collecting nectar or pollen correlates with bees’ gustatory sensitivity. Furthermore, differential sensitivity to a sucrose reward affects individual associative and non associative learning. So far, differences in learning have been observed between nectar and pollen foragers returning to the hive, but not at the beginning of their foraging visit (i.e. highly motivated to forage). Here, we subjected nectar and pollen foragers captured upon arrival at feeders to an olfactory conditioning of PER using sucrose+pollen or sucrose alone as rewards. After conditioning, we tested the retention of the olfactory memories. For testing non associative learning, we subjected foragers to the habituation of the PER using sucrose+pollen or sucrose alone as stimuli. After the habituation procedure, we tested the dishabituation of the PER. We showed that nectar foragers conditioned with sucrose learn better than pollen foragers (p=0.0356), but pollen foragers’ performance improves if pollen participates as a rewarding stimulus. During non associative learning procedures, pollen foragers presented a lower degree of habituation (p=0.0001) and a higher degree of dishabituation (p