Meeting Abstract
Rates of change in the environment influence when learning evolves and when prepared learning evolves. However change also influences the evolution of unlearned preferences such as biases of various kinds. Both learning and unlearned bias interact to influence how animals track changing environments, across evolutionary time and also within individual lifetimes. For an individual, inherited bias may help promote learning in some cases. But a strong initial bias in a mismatched world might interfere with the acquisition of new information when sampling and tracking changes in resource quality. How should animals balance inherited and acquired information to best track change? We present experimental work where we ask how an unlearned preference is modified by experience, and specifically, how this might bias individuals towards or against sampling resources, and then tracking those sampled changes. We apply a classic foraging theory framework of two resource types: one steady and one which varies. Testing foraging bumblebees, Bombus impatiens, in a serial Y-maze, we manipulated the strength of the unlearned preference and whether the reward of the preferred color varied or not. Bumblebees sampled more frequently when they lacked an initial bias in preference, while they reduced sampling when there was an initial preference for an unvarying resource. This bias towards or against sampling information was also present in how quickly and accurately bees then used their experiences to track sampled changes. We discuss how initial bias in preference may influence how well bees can track modified floral environments in an ever changing world.
