Restoring the males’ honor: Pavlovian PER conditioning of visual cues in bumblebee drones

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Restoring the males’ honor: Pavlovian PER conditioning of visual cues in bumblebee drones Leonie Lichtenstein1, Frank M. Sommerlandt1* and Johannes Spaethe1 1 University of Würzburg, Department of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, Germany Learning visual cues is essential in bees for orientation, as well as for the recognition of nest sites, food sources and mating partners. A well-established method for a quantitative evaluation of learning and memory in bees under controlled environmental conditions is the proboscis extension response (PER). After several decades of failure, the PER assay has recently been successfully applied for the associative conditioning of visual stimuli in intact honeybees (Dobrin and Fahrbach, 2012) and bumblebees (Riveros and Gronenberg, 2012). Research using the PER method has primarily focused on workers, whereas males were largely neglected. In the present study, we tested intact Bombus terrestris drones in different visual learning tasks using classical PER conditioning and different monochromatic light stimuli (435, 488, and 528nm). Individuals were confronted with absolute (A+) and differential (A+ vs. B-) conditioning tasks. Furthermore, drones were tested to determine if they can retrieve the learned stimulus after two hours and transfer this information to a subsequent discrimination task in a Y-maze. Our results indicate that drones are capable of discriminating between monochromatic light stimuli, and they attain performance levels similar to that of workers. This approach will allow us to investigate color discrimination abilities of bees in different parts of the color space by increasing the color similarity between stimuli in differential conditioning under controlled conditions. Comparing the perceptual capabilities of different bee species using the PER paradigm may thus enable us to better understand the evolution of color processing within the family Apidae. Figure 1: Probability of proboscis extension response (PER) during absolute conditioning of three color stimuli. Bumblebee drones were trained to associate a color stimulus of particular wavelength (435nm, n=20; 488nm, n=21; and 528nm, n=17) with a sucrose reward. After two hours, a transfer test showed that drones can retrieve the learned color (conditioned stimulus; CS) and discriminate against a novel color (Ncol). Learning performance did not differ among colors. Figure 1 Keywords: Bumblebee, associative learning, proboscis extension response, monochromatic light, visual conditioning, Bombus terrestris, memory consolidation, Drones Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: Colour and polarisation vision Citation: Lichtenstein L, Sommerlandt FM and Spaethe J (2019). Restoring the males’ honor: Pavlovian PER conditioning of visual cues in bumblebee drones. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00107 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Mr. Frank M Sommerlandt, University of Würzburg, Department of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, Würzburg, 97074, Germany, frank.sommerlandt@uni-wuerzburg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Leonie Lichtenstein Frank M Sommerlandt Johannes Spaethe Google Leonie Lichtenstein Frank M Sommerlandt Johannes Spaethe Google Scholar Leonie Lichtenstein Frank M Sommerlandt Johannes Spaethe PubMed Leonie Lichtenstein Frank M Sommerlandt Johannes Spaethe Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.