DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9cnp5hqx0
title: Data from: Cognitive tasks could be biased towards generalists: a lesson from wild non-eusocial bees

description: In this study, we compared associative learning performance and
 exploratory tendencies between dietary specialist and generalist bee
 (Anthophila) species using a closed-environment task with free-moving bees
 called the free-moving proboscis-extension response (FMPER). We found
 lower participation rates than expected, especially among specialist
 species, which hindered our ability to answer our primary question. Thus,
 we combined our data with another published dataset that reported results
 from the same learning task but for several different bee species (again
 including specialists and generalists) to investigate the relation of diet
 breadth with associative learning and exploration across a broader species
 assemblage. The data are grouped by individual bee ID, for which each
 individual has information about life history traits (taxonomic
 information, inter-tegular distance (proxy for body size), diet breadth)
 and values for the 8 experimental trials of the FMPER task (time until
 drinking the correct strip, time until first drink, if first choice was
 correct, participation). We present our files for organizing data,
 creating figures, and analyzing the data. Phylogeny-informed generalized
 linear mixed models indicate that neither specialists nor generalists
 increased accuracy throughout the task, although both diet breadths became
 faster at drinking from the rewarding strip. Bees decreased their drinking
 latency—a measure of exploration—throughout the experiment, with no effect
 of diet breadth. However, specialists became less likely to participate
 over the course of the task compared to generalists. Our results suggest
 that specialist and generalist bees have experienced similar selection for
 associative learning ability, and that specialists are hesitant to
 continue interacting with novel stimuli.
description: # README ## Cognitive tasks could be biased towards generalists: A lesson
 from wild non-eusocial bees The R project contains the following data
 files: * **01_Wrangling**: script that cleans and organizes the data into
 the format we use for figures and analyses * **02_Figures**: script for
 making the figures * **03_Analyses**: script for analysing the data *
 **Data/Kashetsky_data.csv**: raw data file from the current study. NP =
 the bee did not participate, NA = not available because the bee did not
 participate or because we did not collect that information. * ID:
 identification code for each individual bee * Genus: genus of the
 individual * Species: lowest level of identification (species, subgenus,
 "spp." for genera with multiple individuals, "sp." for
 genera with a single individual) * Collection: In the Forrest Lab
 collection at uOttawa or the National Canadian collection of Insects,
 Arachnids and Nematodes in Ottawa * Exclude: yes for excluding this
 individual for some reason (e.g., mistake while conducting experiment) or
 no for keeping them in the dataframe * Diet.breadth: dietary breadth
 assigned using sources outlined in Table S1 * ITD: intertegular distance,
 proxy for body size, in mm * Date: date of the capture and experiment *
 Time.captured: time of bee captured * Time.began: time we began the
 experiment * Acclimation: time between capture and beginning the
 experiment * Cooler, table: time spent in the cooler then on the table *
 Plant: plant the bee was caught on * Location: location of the experiment
 in Ottawa * Volunteer: which person was volunteering that day, code used
 for anonymity * Temperature: temperature that day, in degrees Celsius *
 Humidity: humidity, in percentage * FMPER.sucrose.colour: which colour was
 rewarding. FMPER = free-moving proboscis extensive response *
 First.position.of.sucrose: rewarding strip presented on which side of the
 vial, left or right for the first trial * Position.of.sucrose.2 -
 Position.of.sucrose.7: rewarding strip presented on which side of the
 vial, left or right, for the remaining trials (alternated each trial) *
 Drink.sucrose.1 - Drink.sucrose.7: time until the bee drank from the
 rewarding strip (mm:ss) * Drink.salt.1 - Drink.salt.7: time until the bee
 drank from the aversive strip (mm:ss) * Success.1 - Success.7: if the bee
 drank from the rewarding strip * Salt.exploration.1 - Salt.exploration.7:
 if the bee at least touched the salt strip *
 Position.of.prev.rewarded.colour: the test trial, which side the
 unrewarding strip is presented on * Drink.prev.rew: if the bee drank from
 the strip of the colour previously associated with the rewarding solution
 * Drink.prev.aver: if the bee drank from the strip of the colour
 previously associated with the aversive solution * FMPER.Success: if they
 drank from the strip of the colour previously associated with the
 rewarding solution * Prev.aver.exploration: if they at least touched the
 strip of the colour previously associated with the aversive solution *
 RL.sucrose.colour: we attempted reversal learning, but did not use this
 data due to lack of participation. The colour that was aversive in the
 first 8 trials was now rewarding. RL = reversal learning. *
 Position.of.sucrose.9 - Position.of.sucrose.15: rewarding strip presented
 on which side of the vial, left or right, for the remaining trials
 (alternated each trial) * Drink.sucrose.9 - Drink.sucrose.15: time until
 the bee drank from the rewarding strip (mm:ss) * Drink.salt.9 -
 Drink.salt.15: time until the bee drank from the aversive strip (mm:ss) *
 Success.9 - Success.15: if the bee drank from the rewarding strip *
 Salt.exploration.9 - Salt.exploration.15: if the bee at least touched the
 salt strip * RL.Position.of.prev.rewarded.colour: the test trial, which
 side the unrewarding strip is presented on * RL.Drink.prev.rew: if the bee
 drank from the strip of the colour previously associated with the
 rewarding solution * RL.Drink.prev.aver: if the bee drank from the strip
 of the colour previously associated with the aversive solution *
 RL.FMPER.Success: if they drank from the strip of the colour previously
 associated with the rewarding solution * RL.Prev.aver.exploration: if they
 at least touched the strip of the colour previously associated with the
 aversive solution * Notes: comments from the experiment about the bees *
 **Data/Collado_data.csv**: data file from Collado et al. (2021) (metadata
 from their available data). NA = not available because the bee did not
 participate. RIP = the bee died. * ID: Individual identification of
 experimental subjects * Genus: Taxonomical genus of the individual *
 Species: Taxonomical species of the individual * Date: Date of capture *
 Capture time: Time of capture * Plant: Plant in which the individual was
 captured * Place: The location where the individual was captured * Sex:
 Sex of the individual * IT (mm): Intertegular distance (a proxy for body
 size) * Age.signals: Indicates whether the bee shows signs of being old *
 Observer: The person who conducted the experiment * Correct.cue: Colour of
 the correct cue (associated with sugar) * First.position: Starting side of
 the correct cue during the experiment * PER.sugar1 - PER.sugar7: Time
 until touching the sugared cue in trial 1 through 7, in seconds *
 PER.water1- PER.water7: Time until touching the watered cue in trial 1
 through 7, in seconds * Success1 - Success7: Success in touching the
 correct sugared cue in trial 1 through 7 * Water.exploring1 -
 Water.exploring7: Whether the watered cue was touched in trial 1 through 7
 * PER.sugar.test: Time until touching the sugared cue in the test trial,
 in seconds * PER.water.test: Time until touching the watered cue in the
 test trial, in seconds * Success.test: Success in touching the correct
 sugared cue in the test trial * Water.exploring.test: Whether the watered
 cue was touched in the test trial * Notes: Additional observations or
 comments * Experimental tube: Experimental tube * Brain.weight: Weight of
 the bee's brain, in mg * **Data/combined_data.csv**: cleaned, final
 data file used for the figures and analyses. NP = the bee did not
 participate, NA = not available because the bee did not participate or
 because we did not collect that information, RIP = the bee died. * ID:
 identification code for each individual bee * Genus: genus of the
 individual * Species: lowest level of identification (species, subgenus,
 "spp." for genera with multiple individuals, "sp." for
 genera with a single individual) * Diet: dietary breadth assigned using
 sources outlined in Table S1 * Sex: residual column from Collado et al.
 (2021), only females are included in the figures and analyses * ITD:
 intertegular distance, proxy for body size, in mm * Study: dataset the
 individual was tested in * Correct.cue: rewarding colour of stimuli *
 Trial: seven training trials or the test (8th) trial * Success: if the bee
 drank from the sucrose strip * PER_sugar_scaled: number of seconds until
 the bee drank the sucrose strip, scaled to the mean sucrose latency for
 each dataset and expressed in SD units * Exploration_min: minimum value of
 an individual's drinking latency, identical to the maximum drinking
 latency value if the individual participated. If the individual did not
 participate, this value is the length of the trial (900s for Kashetsky et
 al. dataset and 120s for Collado et al. (2021)) * Exploration_max: maximum
 value of an individual's drinking latency, identical to the minimum
 drinking latency value if the individual participated. If the individual
 did not participate, this value is infinity * First_choice: if an
 individual first drank from the correct strip (1) or the
 aversive/no-rewarding strip (1) * Participation_binary_no_NA: if an
 individual participated in that trial, including trials where a bee was
 not tested as 0 * Num_Participated: number of individuals that
 participated grouped by diet and trial * Total_bees_by_diet: total number
 of individuals per diet in the combined dataset * Participation:
 proportion of participating bees calculated by dividing Num_Participated
 by Total_bees_by_diet * Total_choices_bin: if a bee drank from either
 strip (similar to participation, but not including bees that did not
 participate) * **First_choices.csv**: a dataframe to calculate the
 proportion of bees that chose the correct strip on their first drink
 (Prop_correct_first_choice) for visualization purposes. The number of bees
 within a trial that drank only from the rewarding stimulus or from the
 rewarding stimulus before the aversive/non-rewarding strip
 (correct_choices) was divided by the total number of bees participated
 within a trial (Total_choices) * **Data/Paper_strip_reflectance.csv**:
 output from the photospectromoter measuring the reflectance of the stimuli
 (blue and yellow card stock) * **Phylogeny/BeeTree_aug_15_2024.nwk**: file
 from BeeTree creating the phylogenetic tree, newick file *
 **Phylogeny/Species_names.csv**: list of names we want to keep for the
 phylogenetic tree; required because of a software issue with BeeTree *
 **Phylogeny/Kashetsky_Collado_tree.nwk**: final phylogenetic tree used for
 the analyses and figure, newick file