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，会主动借助社会信息补充自身的个体信息储备。为权衡模仿同类行为的成本与收益，动物需要甄别出使用社会信息相较于个体信息更具优势的场景。本研究在可控实验室环境下以觅食熊蜂（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单与困难两类辨别任务，并检验了花卉线索与社会线索对熊蜂决策的影响。结果显示，当面对简单辨别任务时，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，熊蜂会优先选用社会信息而非个体信息。综上，熊蜂能够灵活结合社会与个体信息，优化觅食决策过程。