# Pollinator cognition in a plant network

## TL;DR

The study explores how different pollinators learn flower colors and how this relates to their foraging specialization in a plant network.

## Contribution

The paper reveals a link between pollinator specialization and enhanced color learning abilities in a natural plant-pollinator network.

## Key findings

- Specialized pollinators made more correct color choices in learning tasks.
- Generalist pollinators visited flowers with similar colors in their visual space.
- Color learning may help specialized insects forage on diverse flower colors.

## Abstract

Cognitive abilities evolve within the context of ecological communities. Honeybees and bumblebees have become model systems for cognitive ecology, but pollination is performed by a diverse group of insects under similar pressures to forage efficiently in a mixed floral community. We studied the colour learning abilities of six species of Hymenoptera (two eusocial bumblebees, a cuckoo bumblebee, two wasps and a leaf-cutter bee) within the context of an island plant community. We used records of insect visits to flowers in the field to determine the index of specialization of each species in the island plant–pollinator network, and measured the spectral reflectance of the flowers they visit. Species with higher specialization indices in our plant–pollinator network made a larger proportion of correct choices in a colour learning task than more generalist species. The more generalist species also visited a group of flowers more similar to each other in hymenopteran colour vision space. These results indicate that better colour learning abilities may enable insects to forage on plants of different colours, whereas more generalist insects are visiting flowers that are similar in colour, and therefore are less reliant on repeated colour learning to forage efficiently.