Social Contact Acts as Appetitive Reinforcement and Supports Associative Learning in Honeybees

Social learning is taxonomically widespread in the animal kingdom [1], and although it is long thought to be a hallmark of vertebrates, recent studies revealed that it also exists in insects [2–5]. The adaptive functions of social learning are well known, but its underlying mechanisms remain debated...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current biology 2019-04, Vol.29 (8), p.1407-1413.e3
Main Authors: Cholé, Hanna, Carcaud, Julie, Mazeau, Hélène, Famié, Sylvain, Arnold, Gérard, Sandoz, Jean-Christophe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Communication
Animals
Appetitive Behavior
Association Learning
associative learning
Bees - physiology
behavior
Cognitive science
Conditioning, Classical
information transfer
insect
Life Sciences
Neurons and Cognition
Neuroscience
Psychology and behavior
Reinforcement, Psychology
reward
Smell
Social Behavior
social communication
social learning
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Social learning is taxonomically widespread in the animal kingdom [1], and although it is long thought to be a hallmark of vertebrates, recent studies revealed that it also exists in insects [2–5]. The adaptive functions of social learning are well known, but its underlying mechanisms remain debated [2, 5, 6]. Social insects critically depend on the social transmission of information for successful food search and their colonies’ fitness [7] and are tractable models for studying the social cues and cognitive mechanisms involved [2–5]. Besides the well-known dance language allowing them to communicate the location of food sources among nestmates [8], honeybees also learn chemosensory information about these sources both outside and within the hive [9, 10]. In the latter case, they associate the floral scent carried by returning foragers on their body with the nectar provided through mouth-to-mouth trophallaxis, similar to the manner in which foragers directly learn odorant-nectar reward associations at the foraging patch [9–11]. Strikingly, however, neither the dance nor trophallaxis is strictly necessary for foragers recruited within the hive to find the right floral source, and simple body contact between foragers may be sufficient [12]. What is the reinforcing agent in this case? We show here that simple social contact acts as appetitive reinforcement and can be used in associative olfactory learning. We demonstrate that this social reinforcement is mediated by bees’ antennal movements and modulated by bees’ behavioral development. These results unveil a social learning mechanism that may play a facilitating role in resource exploitation by social groups. [Display omitted] •Contact with a nestmate elicits an appetitive response (PER) in restrained bees•Contact with a nestmate acts as a reinforcement in odor-nestmate PER conditioning•Social reinforcement is mediated by bees’ antennal communication•This form of social learning may facilitate resource exploitation by social insects Using behavioral experiments and antenna movement recordings, Cholé et al. uncover a novel social learning process in honeybees. Bees learn to associate originally neutral stimuli (odorants) with contact with a nestmate, which acts as an appetitive reinforcement. This reinforcement is mediated by bees’ antennal communication.
ISSN:0960-9822
1879-0445
DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2019.03.025