Putting the ecology back into insect cognition research

Abstract

Over the past decades, research on insect cognition has made considerable advances in describing the ability of model species (in particular bees and fruit flies) to achieve cognitive tasks once thought to be unique to vertebrates, and investigating how these may be implemented in a miniature brain. While this lab-based research is critical to understand some fundamental mechanisms of insect brains and cognition, taking a more integrative and comparative view will help us making sense of this rich behavioural repertoire and its evolution. Here we argue that there is a need to reconsider insect cognition into an ecological context, in order to design experiments that address the cognitive challenges insects face in nature, identify competing hypotheses about the cognitive abilities driving the observed behavioural responses, and test them across different populations and species. Reconnecting with the tradition of naturalistic observations, by testing animals in the field or in ecologically-inspired setup and comparing the performances of individuals, is complementary to mechanistic research in the lab, and will greatly improve our understanding of the role of insect cognition, its the diversity, and the influence of ecological factors in its evolution.

Varroa destructor from the Laboratory to the Field: Control, Biocontrol and IPM Perspectives—A Review

“…Clearly, to identify key factors in host–parasite relationships under laboratory conditions and to be able to transfer these conclusions into the field is a complex and laborious purpose. This is especially the case in studies about eusocial species with a completely different dynamic at the group level [ 239 ]. There is no common method to extrapolate laboratory results into the field.…”

Fungus-Growing Ants: Models for the Integrative Analysis of Cognition and Brain Evolution

“…Cognition is difficult to universally define (Logan et al, 2018;Bayne et al, 2019) and measure (Rowe and Healy, 2014;Simons and Tibbetts, 2019). However, cognitive ecologists have developed definitions emphasizing divergent demands from behavioral niches and neurobiological capabilities (Balda and Kamil, 1989;Real, 1993;Shettleworth, 2000Shettleworth, , 2010Dukas and Ratcliffe, 2009;Lihoreau et al, 2019). Cognition should be linked to ecological adaptation to understand developmental and evolutionary brain plasticity.…”

The Sensory and Cognitive Ecology of Nectar Robbing

“…We argue here that a deeper exploration into the sensory and cognitive processes involved in nectar robbing is needed to gain insight into the ecological and evolutionary causes of the behavior, as well as its consequences for plants. Toward this end, we can appeal to a growing literature on sensory and cognitive ecology, including a substantial body of work focusing on pollinator behavior (Chittka and Thomson, 2001;Schiestl and Johnson, 2013;Baracchi, 2019;Lihoreau et al, 2019;van der Kooi et al, 2021). This work has made significant inroads into characterizing the mechanisms that govern decision-making by floral visitors.…”