Stingless bees (Melipona scutellaris) learn to associate footprint cues at food sources with a specific reward context

Abstract

Foraging insects leave chemical footprints on flowers that subsequent foragers may use as indicators for recent flower visits and, thus, potential resource depletion. Accordingly, foragers should reject food sources presenting these chemical cues. Contrasting this assumption, experimental studies in stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini), so far, demonstrated an attractive effect of footprints. These findings lead to doubts about the meaning of these chemical cues in natural foraging contexts. Here, we asked whether foragers of stingless bees (Melipona scutellaris) use footprints according to the previously experienced reward level of visited food sources. Bees were trained to artificial flower patches, at which the reward of a flower either decreased or, alternatively, increased after a visit by a forager. Individuals were allowed a total of nine foraging bouts to the patch, after which their preference for visited or unvisited flowers was tested. In the choice tests, bees trained under the decreasing reward context preferred unvisited flowers, whereas individuals trained under the increasing reward context preferred visited flowers. Foragers without experience chose randomly between visited and unvisited flowers. These results demonstrate that M. scutellaris learns to associate unspecific footprint cues at food sources with differential, specific reward contexts, and uses these chemical cues accordingly for their foraging decisions.