Parameters of variable reward distributions that affect risk sensitivity of honey bees

Drezner-Levy, Tamar; Shafir, Sharoni

doi:10.1242/jeb.02656

Cited by 30 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In line with these findings, recent studies of choice behaviour in harnessed honeybees (Shafir et al, 1999;Drezner-Levy and Shafir, 2007) support the view that subjects on a positive energy budget invariably prefer less variable reward magnitudes if the variable reward distribution includes zero rewards, as it does in our experiments. The same pattern has been reported by analyses of human studies (Weber et al, 2004), where the subjects strongly avoided reward variability if the variable distribution included zero rewards and had a large coefficient of variation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

The response of the honeybee dance to uncertain rewards

Seefeldt

Marco

2008

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYThis work focuses on the responses of dancing bees to uncertain rewards. We varied the distribution of a fixed amount of sugar solution among the several flowers of a patch and recorded the foraging and subsequent dance behaviour of single honeybees collecting such a reward at that patch. Concurrently, we aimed to minimize the well-known modulatory effects of sugar reward on both the probability and the strength of a honeybeeʼs dance. It was under these circumstances that we conceived the honeybee dance as an autonomous information-processing system and asked whether or not such a system is sensitive to uncertainty of reward. Our results suggest that bees can tune their dancing according to the distribution of sugar reward among the several flowers of a patch, and that they seemingly do this based on the number -or the frequency -of their non-rewarding inspections to these flowers: the higher the number of non-rewarding inspections the lower the probability of dancing. As a result, a honeybeeʼs dance appears as ʻrisk-averseʼ, meaning that dances for uncertain resources are less likely. Presumably, the ultimate result of having ʻrisk-averseʼ dances is a colonyʼs ability to diminish delayed rewards and the effects of competition with other flower visitors for limited resources. We conclude that a systems approach to the honeybee dance will help to further analyse the regulation of a honeybeeʼs threshold for dancing, and that theoretical accounts of ʻrisk-sensitiveʼ dances would prove fruitful in broader studies of honeybee foraging, particularly if one were to examine how recruitment actually translates into fitness.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

The response of the honeybee dance to uncertain rewards

Seefeldt

Marco

2008

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…In the present study, some A. aestivus flowers contained no nectar at all due to the herbivore activity. This would increase variability in nectar volume reward, that might lead to risk aversion by the pollinator (Waddington et al 1981;Hambäck 2001;Drezner-Levy and Shafir 2006). Variability in nectar reward may play a crucial role when considering plants, which unlike A. aestivus, do no have the capability to reproduce vegetatively.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Herbivory by sucking mirid bugs can reduce nectar production in Asphodelus aestivus Brot.

Samocha

Sternberg

2010

Arthropod-Plant Interactions

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This experimental study focused on the effects of a mirid bug herbivore, Capsodes infuscatus on the flower nectar yield of a Mediterranean geophyte, Asphodelus aestivus. The effects of increasing densities of adult C. infuscatus bugs on A. aestivus, on the nectar volume and concentration were examined. Significant decreases were found in the number of flowers and nectar production as C. infuscatus densities increased. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed that nectar production was not affected by environmental variables (air temperature, relative air humidity and day-time) that were treated as covariates for the various bug herbivory intensities. Sugar concentration did not vary significantly among treatments, indicating that abiotic conditions were not responsible for differing nectar amounts. In light of A. aestivus's dependence on pollinator visits to produce seeds, we conclude that C. infuscatus could impair pollination success by reducing the amount of nectar in flowers. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to show that insect herbivores do not necessarily have to remove segments from the flower in order to decrease nectar secretion.

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“…This form of expectation becomes evident through the analysis of an animal's intra-and inter-patch choices across its successive visits to an array of multiple feeders, and depends upon the amount and concentration of the solution offered by these feeders; bees match their choices to these properties. Moreover, they also appear to be sensitive to variance of reward (Real 1981;Shafir et al 1999;Shapiro et al 2001;Waddington 2001;Drezner-Levy and Shafir 2007). These short-term reward expectations seemingly help the animal in anticipating the level of reward, and suggest that the value of the appetitive stimulus depends on what the animal expects to experience next in a given situation and, therefore, on the background of its experience under a similar situation (Waddington and Gottlieb 1990;Real 1991;Greggers and Menzel 1993;Fülöp and Menzel 2000;Wiegmann et al 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning reward expectations in honeybees

Gil¹,

Marco²,

Menzel³

2007

Learn. Mem.

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The aim of this study was to test whether honeybees develop reward expectations. In our experiment, bees first learned to associate colors with a sugar reward in a setting closely resembling a natural foraging situation. We then evaluated whether and how the sequence of the animals' experiences with different reward magnitudes changed their later behavior in the absence of reinforcement and within an otherwise similar context. We found that the bees that had experienced increasing reward magnitudes during training assigned more time to flower inspection 24 and 48 h after training. Our design and behavioral measurements allowed us to uncouple the signal learning and the nutritional aspects of foraging from the effects of subjective reward values. We thus found that the animals behaved differently neither because they had more strongly associated the related predicting signals nor because they were fed more or faster. Our results document for the first time that honeybees develop long-term expectations of reward; these expectations can guide their foraging behavior after a relatively long pause and in the absence of reinforcement, and further experiments will aim toward an elucidation of the neural mechanisms involved in this form of learning.Modern views on associative learning acknowledge that classical as well as instrumental conditioning depend upon associations between external cues or behavioral responses and internal representations of reward (Rescorla 1987). Within this context, the term "expectation," or "expectancy," denotes an activation of an internal representation of reward in the absence of reinforcement by the cues and events predicting such a reward (Tolman 1959;Logan 1960). According to theory, the reward value associated with a stimulus is not a static, intrinsic property of the stimulus. Thus, for example, animals can assign different appetitive values to a stimulus as a function of both their internal state at the time when the stimulus is encountered and the background of their previous experience with such stimulus. This means that specific neural mechanisms have evolved not only to detect the presence of reward but also to predict its occurrence and magnitude based on internal representations from past experiences, in turn activated by the subject's current motivational status (Schultz 2000).Studying this form of learning is critical for understanding how reward controls behavior, how it leads to the formation of reward expectations, and how the brain uses reward-related information to control goal-directed behavior. Studies on reward expectations, however, sometimes appear to be paradoxical in assessing the cognitive complexity underlying such processes, as well as the basic principles of planning and decision-making. The reason is probably to be found in the fact that an anticipatory imagery or idea aroused by learned associations is thought to underlie these phenomena. In principle, however, neither highly complex cognitive abilities nor consciousness phenomena are assumed to be the base...

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Parameters of variable reward distributions that affect risk sensitivity of honey bees

Cited by 30 publications

References 37 publications

The response of the honeybee dance to uncertain rewards

The response of the honeybee dance to uncertain rewards

Herbivory by sucking mirid bugs can reduce nectar production in Asphodelus aestivus Brot.

Learning reward expectations in honeybees

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