Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 276, Issue 1664, Pages 2031-2036Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1748
Keywords
avoidance learning; Bombus terrestris; crab spider; foraging preferences; pollinator behaviour
Categories
Funding
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/D012813/1]
- NERC [NE/D012813/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/D012813/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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Predators of pollinators can influence pollination services and plant fitness via both consumptive (reducing pollinator density) and non-consumptive (altering pollinator behaviour) effects. However, a better knowledge of the mechanisms underlying behaviourally mediated indirect effects of predators is necessary to properly understand their role in community dynamics. We used the tripartite relationship between bumblebees, predatory crab spiders and flowers to ask whether behaviourally mediated effects are localized to flowers harbouring predators, or whether bees extend their avoidance to entire plant species. In a tightly controlled laboratory environment, bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) were exposed to a random mixture of equally rewarding yellow and white artificial flowers, but foraging on yellow flowers was very risky: bees had a 25 per cent chance of receiving a simulated predation attempt by 'robotic' crab spiders. As bees learnt to avoid 'dangerous' flowers, their foraging preferences changed and they began to visit fewer yellow flowers than expected by chance. Bees avoided spider-free yellow flowers as well as dangerous yellow flowers when spiders were more difficult to detect (the colour of yellow spiders was indistinguishable from that of yellow flowers). Therefore, this interaction between bee learning and predator crypsis could lead flower species harbouring cryptic predators to suffer from reduced reproductive success.
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