Many animals deposit odours in their environment, either intentionally or unintentionally, that remain at a site after the animal itself has left. These odours may be exploited by other species as social information, and thus have a significant role in structuring species interactions, even where the species involved rarely interact directly. Here we show that three species of Australian social stingless bees (Meliponini) not only detect the odours left behind by conspecifics, but also those of an abundant introduced competitor, the honey bee Apis mellifera (Apini). Foraging bees deposit pheromones that assist nestmates in locating profitable food sources (signals) and/or involuntary olfactory “footprints” (cues), both of which are vulnerable to exploitation by the foragers of other colonies. Using choice trials, we find that foragers of Tetragonula carbonaria, Tetragonula clypearis and Austroplebeia australis were more attracted to feeders recently used by, and thus carrying the odours of, their own species (both nestmates and non-nestmates) or honey bees, than to clean unused feeders. Australia’s stingless bees may learn to associate honey bee odours with food and exploit this to their advantage, or they may mistake honey bee odours for some other attractant and be misdirected. Our results suggest that introduced social insects could have a previously overlooked impact on resident communities, by modifying the olfactory landscape of shared resources in ways that alter native species’ foraging behaviour.

许多动物有意或无意地将气味沉积在它们的环境中，这些气味在动物离开后仍留在某个地方。这些气味可能被其他物种用作社会信息，因此在构建物种相互作用方面具有重要作用，即使所涉及的物种很少直接相互作用。在这里，我们展示了三种澳大利亚社会无刺蜂 (Meliponini) 不仅可以检测同种蜜蜂留下的气味，还可以检测大量引入的竞争对手蜜蜂Apis mellifera留下的气味（阿皮尼）。觅食蜜蜂会沉积信息素，帮助筑巢者定位有利可图的食物来源（信号）和/或非自愿的嗅觉“足迹”（线索），这两者都很容易被其他蜂群的觅食者利用。通过选择试验，我们发现Tetragonula carbonaria、Tetragonula clypearis和Austroplebeia australis 的觅食者与清洁未使用的喂食器相比，它们更容易被最近被它们自己的物种（同窝者和非同窝者）或蜜蜂使用并因此带有气味的喂食器所吸引。澳大利亚的无刺蜜蜂可能会学会将蜜蜂的气味与食物联系起来，并将其作为自己的优势加以利用，或者它们可能会将蜜蜂的气味误认为是其他引诱剂而被误导。我们的研究结果表明，通过以改变本地物种觅食行为的方式改变共享资源的嗅觉景观，引入的社会昆虫可能会对居民社区产生以前被忽视的影响。