Book contents
- Field and Laboratory Methods in Animal Cognition
- Field and Laboratory Methods in Animal Cognition
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. The Concept of Umwelt in Experimental Animal Cognition
- 1 Ants – Individual and Social Cognition
- 2 Bats – Using Sound to Reveal Cognition
- 3 Bees – The Experimental Umwelt of Honeybees
- 4 Carib Grackles – Field and Lab Work on a Tame, Opportunistic Island Icterid
- 5 Chicken – Cognition in the Poultry Yard
- 6 Chimpanzees – Investigating Cognition in the Wild
- 7 Dolphins and Whales – Taking Cognitive Research Out of the Tanks and into the Wild
- 8 Elephants – Studying Cognition in the African Savannah
- 9 Fish – How to Ask Them the Right Questions
- 10 Hermit Crabs – Information Gathering by the Hermit Crab, Pagurus bernhardus
- 11 Hyenas – Testing Cognition in the Umwelt of the Spotted Hyena
- 12 Lizards – Measuring Cognition: Practical Challenges and the Influence of Ecology and Social Behaviour
- 13 Meerkats – Identifying Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Meerkat Coordination and Communication: Experimental Designs in Their Natural Habitat
- 14 Octopuses – Mind in the Waters
- 15 Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) – Cognitive and Communicative Abilities
- 16 Sharks – Elasmobranch Cognition
- 17 Spiders – Hints for Testing Cognition and Learning in Jumping Spiders
- 18 Tortoises – Cold-Blooded Cognition: How to Get a Tortoise Out of Its Shell
- Epilogue
- Index
- References
3 - Bees – The Experimental Umwelt of Honeybees
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2018
Book contents
- Field and Laboratory Methods in Animal Cognition
- Field and Laboratory Methods in Animal Cognition
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction. The Concept of Umwelt in Experimental Animal Cognition
- 1 Ants – Individual and Social Cognition
- 2 Bats – Using Sound to Reveal Cognition
- 3 Bees – The Experimental Umwelt of Honeybees
- 4 Carib Grackles – Field and Lab Work on a Tame, Opportunistic Island Icterid
- 5 Chicken – Cognition in the Poultry Yard
- 6 Chimpanzees – Investigating Cognition in the Wild
- 7 Dolphins and Whales – Taking Cognitive Research Out of the Tanks and into the Wild
- 8 Elephants – Studying Cognition in the African Savannah
- 9 Fish – How to Ask Them the Right Questions
- 10 Hermit Crabs – Information Gathering by the Hermit Crab, Pagurus bernhardus
- 11 Hyenas – Testing Cognition in the Umwelt of the Spotted Hyena
- 12 Lizards – Measuring Cognition: Practical Challenges and the Influence of Ecology and Social Behaviour
- 13 Meerkats – Identifying Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Meerkat Coordination and Communication: Experimental Designs in Their Natural Habitat
- 14 Octopuses – Mind in the Waters
- 15 Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) – Cognitive and Communicative Abilities
- 16 Sharks – Elasmobranch Cognition
- 17 Spiders – Hints for Testing Cognition and Learning in Jumping Spiders
- 18 Tortoises – Cold-Blooded Cognition: How to Get a Tortoise Out of Its Shell
- Epilogue
- Index
- References
Summary
Honeybees live both a social life inside of their colony and a life as individuals when foraging. Their cognitive faculties become apparent in their individual life as foragers for provision and information. Identifying them as individuals has crucially allowed studying learning and memory formation under natural conditions and in the laboratory, thus tracing the history of individuals’ experience. Although here I mainly focus on behavioural studies, bees also lend themselves to neurophysiological studies, because of their rather small brains, the excessibility of single neurons and networks, and their robustness. Training experiments reveal that bees perform rather complex tasks (e.g. learning rules, generalization and abstraction, delayed matching to sample, what, when and where tasks). Exploratory learning leads to navigation based on a memory structure, which can be best conceptualized as cognitive maps. Social communication through waggle dance is embedded in this rich spatial memory, allowing bees to choose between alternatives on the base of the expected outcome. While reviewing existing literature on bees’ umwelt and cognition, I will provide practical tips and suggestions on how to best test cognitive skills in these fascinating insects.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Field and Laboratory Methods in Animal CognitionA Comparative Guide, pp. 60 - 75Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2018
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