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Blue colour preference in honeybees distracts visual attention for learning closed shapes

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Abstract

Spatial vision is an important cue for how honeybees (Apis mellifera) find flowers, and previous work has suggested that spatial learning in free-flying bees is exclusively mediated by achromatic input to the green photoreceptor channel. However, some data suggested that bees may be able to use alternative channels for shape processing, and recent work shows conditioning type and training length can significantly influence bee learning and cue use. We thus tested the honeybees’ ability to discriminate between two closed shapes considering either absolute or differential conditioning, and using eight stimuli differing in their spectral characteristics. Consistent with previous work, green contrast enabled reliable shape learning for both types of conditioning, but surprisingly, we found that bees trained with appetitive-aversive differential conditioning could additionally use colour and/or UV contrast to enable shape discrimination. Interestingly, we found that a high blue contrast initially interferes with bee shape learning, probably due to the bees innate preference for blue colours, but with increasing experience bees can learn a variety of spectral and/or colour cues to facilitate spatial learning. Thus, the relationship between bee pollinators and the spatial and spectral cues that they use to find rewarding flowers appears to be a more rich visual environment than previously thought.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Martin Streinzer for performing the colour measurements and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments of the manuscript. L.M. was recipient of a DOC-fFORTE fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Science at the Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna. A.G.D. was supported by Australian Research Council DP0878968/DP0987989/DP130100015 and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Linde Morawetz & Alexander Svoboda

  2. Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, Biozentrum, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany

    Johannes Spaethe

  3. School of Media and Communication, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, Australia

    Adrian G. Dyer

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  1. Linde Morawetz
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  2. Alexander Svoboda
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  4. Adrian G. Dyer
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Correspondence to Linde Morawetz.

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Morawetz, L., Svoboda, A., Spaethe, J. et al. Blue colour preference in honeybees distracts visual attention for learning closed shapes. J Comp Physiol A 199, 817–827 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-013-0843-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-013-0843-5

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