Data from: Foraging bumblebees use social cues more when the task is difficult

When foraging in their natural environment, many animals readily complement their personal knowledge with additional social information. To balance the costs and benefits of copying others, animals have to discern situations in which it is more advantageous to use social rather than personal information. Here, we used foraging bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) in a controlled laboratory setting and showed that the difficulty of a foraging task affects how the bees weight the two types of information. We used artificial flowers to devise easy and difficult discriminatory tasks, and tested the influence of floral and social cues on decision making. When facing an easy discrimination task, foraging bees were likely to rely on personal information and were only marginally affected by social information. By contrast, they prioritized social over personal information when flower discrimination was difficult and therefore the probability of making errors was higher. In summary, bees are able to use social and personal information to optimize foraging decisions in a flexible way.

许多动物在自然环境中觅食时，会主动借助额外的社会信息（social information）补充自身的个体知识（personal knowledge）。为权衡效仿同类的成本与收益，动物需要辨识出相较于使用个体信息，运用社会信息更为有利的场景。本研究中，我们在可控实验室环境下以觅食性熊蜂（Bombus terrestris）为实验对象，证实觅食任务的难度会影响熊蜂对两类信息的权重分配。我们通过人工花卉设计了简易与困难两类辨别任务，测试了花卉线索（floral cues）与社会线索（social cues）对熊蜂决策的影响。当面对简易辨别任务时，觅食熊蜂更倾向于依赖个体信息，仅受社会信息的微弱影响；与之相反，当花卉辨别任务难度较高、出错概率更大时，熊蜂会优先采用社会信息而非个体信息。综上，熊蜂能够灵活运用社会信息与个体信息，优化觅食决策。