Bees learn preferences for plant species that offer only pollen as a reward

The astonishing diversity of floral form in angiosperm plants is driven in large part by preferences of pollinators for various floral traits, including learned preferences. Remarkably, almost all of a vast literature on learning and memory in pollinators relates to nectar as a reward, even though bees and many flies, beetles, and butterflies must collect pollen. In this study, we asked if bees formed preferences for plant species from which pollen had been collected successfully. Using absolute conditioning, we gave pollen foraging bees experience with plant species that offered only pollen rewards. Naive bees generally showed modest preferences, whereas experienced bees adopted strong preferences for those species over alternative species not previously experienced. Learned preferences were retained for at least 24h, consistent with preferences learned with nectar rewards. These experience-mediated changes in preference raised the possibility that bees formed associations between part...