Despite representing the majority of bee species, non-eusocial bees (e.g. solitary, subsocial, semisocial, and quasisocial species) are comparatively understudied in learning, memory, and cognitive-like behaviour compared to eusocial bees, such as honeybees and bumblebees. Ecologically relevant colour discrimination tasks are well-studied in eusocial bees, and research has shown that a few non-eusocial bee species are also capable of colour learning and long-term memory retention. Australia hosts over 2000 native bee species, most of which are non-eusocial, yet evidence of cognitive-like behaviour and learning abilities under controlled testing conditions is lacking. In the current study, I examine the learning ability of a non-eusocial Australian bee, Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) lanarium, using aversive differential conditioning during a colour discrimination task. L. lanarium learnt to discriminate between salient blue- and yellow-coloured stimuli following training with simulated predation events. This study acts as a bridge between cognitive studies on eusocial and non-social bees and introduces a framework for testing non-eusocial wild bees on elemental visual learning tasks using aversive conditioning. Non-eusocial bee species are far more numerous than eusocial species and contribute to agriculture, economics, and ecosystem services in Australia and across the globe. Thus, it is important to study their capacity to learn flower traits allowing for successful foraging and pollination events, thereby permitting us a better understanding of their role in plant-pollinator interactions.

尽管代表了大多数蜜蜂物种，但与真社会性蜜蜂（例如蜜蜂和大黄蜂）相比，非社会性蜜蜂（例如，独居、亚社会、半社会性和准社会性物种）在学习、记忆和类认知行为方面的研究相对较少。生态相关的颜色辨别任务在真社会性蜜蜂中得到了充分研究，研究表明，一些非社会性蜜蜂物种也能够进行颜色学习和长期记忆保留。澳大利亚拥有 2000 多种本地蜜蜂物种，其中大部分是非社会性的，但缺乏在受控测试条件下类似认知行为和学习能力的证据。在目前的研究中，我检查了非社会性澳大利亚蜜蜂Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) lanarium的学习能力，在颜色辨别任务中使用厌恶差异调节。L. lanarium在模拟捕食事件训练后学会了区分显着的蓝色和黄色刺激。这项研究充当了对真社会性和非社会性蜜蜂的认知研究之间的桥梁，并引入了一个框架，用于使用厌恶条件在基本视觉学习任务上测试非社会性野生蜜蜂。非社会性蜜蜂物种的数量远远超过社会性物种，它们对澳大利亚和全球的农业、经济和生态系统服务做出了贡献。因此，重要的是研究它们学习能够成功觅食和授粉事件的花朵特征的能力，从而使我们能够更好地了解它们在植物 - 授粉媒介相互作用中的作用。