Bees flexibly adjust decision strategies to information content in a foraging task

When making decisions, animals often rely on multiple cues simultaneously. These provide complementary sources of information, which can increase the accuracy of decisions. In this study, we tested the decision and learning strategies of insects faced with multiple cues in a foraging task, using the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. We presented combinations of visual-only features, as found in natural flowers: colors of varying discriminability, paired with shapes or patterns. We found that the bees relied exclusively on colors when these were easy to discriminate, and did not learn pattern or shape features simultaneously. With harder to discriminate colors, the bees learned both color and shape or pattern features. Our results demonstrate that bumblebees flexibly adjust their learning strategies when presented with visual features of varying discriminability, to balance the investment in learning time and accuracy during multicue learning and decision making. A difference in learning dynamics suggests that blocking could serve as a mechanism to implement this strategy switch.