Bumblebees distinguish floral scent patterns, and can transfer these to corresponding visual patterns.

ABSTRACT: Flowers act as multisensory billboards to pollinators by using a range of sensory modalities such as visual patterns and scents. Different floral organs release differing compositions and quantities of the volatiles contributing to floral scent, suggesting that scent may be patterned within flowers. Early experiments suggested that pollinators can distinguish between the scents of differing floral regions, but little is known about how these potential scent patterns might influence pollinators. We show that bumblebees can learn different spatial patterns of the same scent, and that they are better at learning to distinguish between flowers when the scent pattern corresponds to a matching visual pattern. Surprisingly, once bees have learnt the spatial arrangement of a scent pattern, they su

SUBMITTER: Lawson DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015847 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature