Data from: Pollinator cognition in a plant network

Cognitive abilities evolve within the context of ecological communities.
Honeybees and bumblebees have become model systems for cognitive ecology;
but pollination is performed by a diverse group of insects under similar
pressures to forage efficiently in a mixed floral community. We studied
the colour learning abilities of six species of Hymenoptera (two eusocial
bumblebees, a cuckoo bumblebee, two wasps, and a leaf-cutter bee) within
the context of an island plant community. We used records of insect visits
to flowers in the field to determine the index of specialization of each
species in the island plant-pollinator network, and measured the spectral
reflectance of the flowers they visit. Species with higher specialization
indices in our plant-pollinator network made a larger proportion of
correct choices in a colour learning task than more generalist species.
The more generalist species also visited a group of flowers more similar
to each other in Hymenopteran colour vision space. These results indicate
that better colour learning abilities may enable insects to forage on
plants of different colours, whereas more generalist insects are visiting
flowers that are similar in colour, and therefore are less reliant on
repeated colour learning to forage efficiently.