Flower cues serve as information that improves foraging by flower visitors. These cues may act in a synergic, redundant or complementary way. We examined how the integration of visual cues affects foraging in the southern monarch butterfly, and whether these combined cues can be learned. Artificial flowers having two flower cues, colouration pattern (uniform or radial) and dimension (2D or 3D), were employed in laboratory experiments. We assumed that uniform flowers are less informative than radial ones, and that bi-dimensionality is less informative than tri-dimensionality. These cues resulted in four floral types (uniform 2D, radial 2D, uniform 3D and radial 3D). Two- and multiple choice tests were run to investigate whether butterflies show more attraction to more informative flowers than less informative ones. Flower cues acted in a complementary way, as more informative flowers were preferred by southern monarchs than less informative ones. In a multiple-choice scenario, uniform 2D flowers received less visits than radial flowers of both dimensions. In a second experiment, butterflies were conditioned to the four flower types. No conditioning occurred, as radial flowers were visited consistently more than uniform flowers. Our results show that southern monarchs take integrated flower information into account for foraging decisions, and that learning does not occur when highly informative flowers are present.

中文翻译：

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南方帝王蝶对信息量丰富的花朵的吸引力和缺乏调节

花卉线索作为信息，可以改善花卉游客的觅食。这些线索可能以协同、冗余或互补的方式起作用。我们研究了视觉线索的整合如何影响南方帝王蝶的觅食，以及是否可以学习这些组合线索。在实验室实验中采用了具有两种花提示、着色模式（均匀或径向）和尺寸（2D 或 3D）的人造花。我们假设均匀的花比径向花的信息少，并且二维比三维的信息少。这些线索导致了四种花卉类型（均匀 2D、径向 2D、均匀 3D 和径向 3D）。进行了两项和多项选择测试，以调查蝴蝶是否比信息较少的花朵更能吸引更多信息的花朵。花卉线索以互补的方式发挥作用，因为南方君主更喜欢信息量更大的花朵，而不是信息量更少的花朵。在多项选择方案中，均匀的 2D 花比两个维度的径向花获得的访问量更少。在第二个实验中，蝴蝶适应了四种花型。没有条件发生，因为放射状花比均匀的花更容易被访问。我们的研究结果表明，南方君主将综合花卉信息考虑到觅食决策中，并且当存在高度信息化的花卉时，学习不会发生。蝴蝶适应了四种花型。没有条件发生，因为放射状花比均匀的花更容易被访问。我们的研究结果表明，南方君主将综合花卉信息考虑到觅食决策中，并且当存在高度信息化的花卉时，学习不会发生。蝴蝶适应了四种花型。没有条件发生，因为放射状花比均匀的花更容易被访问。我们的研究结果表明，南方君主将综合花卉信息考虑到觅食决策中，并且当存在高度信息化的花卉时，学习不会发生。