SIMPLE DISCRIMINATION AND SUCCESSIVE REVERSALS WITH VISUAL STIMULI IN BEES (MELIPONA QUADRIFASCIATA)

Abstract

Except for the pioneering work of Isaías Pessotti on discriminative learning in bees, other studies often employed procedures that hinder rigorous experimental control and make difficult the data interpretation (e.g., ambiguous definition of the response, simultaneous training of various subjects, and analysis of pooled data). Moreover, few studies have investigated the discriminative learning in species other than Apis mellifera and Bombus terrestris. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to establish simple discrimination between colors and between black and white patterns, in twenty individual bees of the species Melipona quadrifasciata. In Experiment 2, the objective was to establish simple discrimination and discrimination reversals with four individual bees using electro-mechanical equipment and a bar press response. All the bees learned to discriminate between colors in Experiment 1, but discriminations between black and white patterns showed high individual differences. In Experiment 2, the four bees learned the initial discrimination and also learned from one to 11 discrimination reversals. The results of both experiments confirm that Meliponidae can learn visual discriminations, including successive reversals, but the data also suggest that performance may vary considerably depending on the discriminative stimuli. Keywords: simple discrimination, reversal of discrimination, visual stimuli, bees, Melipona quadrifasciata