Heliconiini butterflies can learn time-dependent reward associations

For many pollinators, flowers provide predictable temporal schedules of resource availability, meaning an ability to learn time-dependent information could be widely beneficial. However, this ability has only been demonstrated in a handful of species. Observational studies of Heliconius butterflies suggest that they may have an ability to form time-dependent foraging preferences. Heliconius are unique among butterflies in actively collecting pollen, a dietary behaviour linked to spatiotemporally faithful ‘trap-line’ foraging. Time-dependency of foraging preferences is hypothesised to allow Heliconius to exploit temporal predictability in alternative pollen resources. Here, we provide the first experimental evidence in support of this hypothesis, demonstrating that Heliconius hecale can learn opposing colour preferences in two time periods. This shift in preference is robust to the order of presentation, suggesting that preference is tied to the time of day and not due to ordinal or inte...

对于许多传粉者而言，花朵提供了可预测的资源可用性时间节律，这意味着学习时间依赖型信息的能力可能具有广泛的益处。然而，这种能力仅在少数物种中得到证实。对Heliconius蝴蝶（Heliconius butterflies）的观察研究表明，它们可能具备形成时间依赖型觅食偏好的能力。Heliconius在蝶类中独树一帜，它们会主动采集花粉——这是一种与时空稳定的“陷阱线”觅食行为（trap-line foraging）相关的摄食习性。研究假设，觅食偏好的时间依赖性使Heliconius能够利用替代花粉资源中的时间可预测性。本文首次提供了支持这一假设的实验证据，证明Heliconius hecale能够在两个时间段内学习对立的颜色偏好。这种偏好转变不受呈现顺序的影响，表明偏好与一天中的时间相关，而非源于顺序或inte...