Bumble bees are surprisingly innovativeby Virginia Norell, Science, 23 Feb 2017

Presentation prepared by Dmitry Fedoriaka

March 3, 2017

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 1 / 11

Agenda

Bumble bees

The experiment

The outcome

The conclusions

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 2 / 11

Bumble bee

Posess complex navigational skills

Have rudimentary culture

Have emotions

Can use tools

Can learn

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 3 / 11

The experiment

Move a ball to the target — get a sugar!

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 4 / 11

Learning

1 Watching another trained bumble bee2 Watching a ’ghost’ bee (actually magnet)3 No training — ball already at the target (with reward)

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 5 / 11

Challenges

Three balls on the different distance

While learning only the farthest ball was moved

Yellow ball replaced with black ball

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 6 / 11

Outcome

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 7 / 11

Analysis

In all cases — learned successfully

Moved mostly nearest ball even if ’teacher’ moved the farthest(optimal solution)

Moved black ball as well as yellow (understood concept)

Sometimes pulled the ball even if ’teacher’ only pushed it(innovation)

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 8 / 11

Conclusion

Small brain doesn’t mean no intelligence

Bumble bees can develop entirely novel behaviors when theenvironment changes

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 9 / 11

Thank you

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 10 / 11

References

Bumble bees are surprisingly innovative,Virginia Morell, Feb 23, 2017,http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/

bumble-bees-are-surprisingly-innovative

Bumblebees show cognitive flexibility by improving on anobserved complex behavior,Loukola et al., Science 355, 833–836 (2017),http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/355/

6327/833.full.pdf

Dmitriy S. Fedoriaka Bumble bees 11 / 11