Learning and memory in bee species with different sociality levels

• Grant number: 24/18071-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Support Program for Fixating Young Doctors
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: September 21, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Animal Behavior
• Principal Investigator: Fábio Santos do Nascimento
• Grantee: Thiago da Silva Depintor
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/01451-8 - Learning and memory in bee species with different sociality levels, AP.R

Abstract

There is an enormous variation in the cognitive complexity of animal species, and many studies show that ecological and social factors have great importance to explain such cognitive variation. Most studies about the cognitive evolution have been done on vertebrates, investigating morphological aspects of the brain, as well as the cognitive abilities of these animals, taking into consideration the sociality of these species. Social insects are important models to understand the evolution of sociality, as those living in complex societies can present important organization abilities, as the tasks partitioning inside and outside of the colony. Although there are important studies on the brain size and neuroanatomy of insects, information about the cognitive abilities' evolution is scarce. Among the social insects, bees are notable on their cognitive complexity and the tasks they can perform, being thus great models for experimental psychology and behavior studies. One of the ways to access bees' cognitive abilities is through the Proboscis Extension Response (PER) protocol. However, the studies using such protocol are focused on social bees, neglecting the investigations about the cognitive abilities of solitary and primitively social bees. Thus, this project plans to investigate the differences on the cognitive abilities of olfactive learning, memory and discrimination between social and primitively social bees, under the PER protocol, aiming to fill an important knowledge gap, which is to understand the cognitive evolution taking into consideration the sociality levels of bee species.