Temporal reward variability promotes sampling of a new flower type by bumblebees

Foraging bumblebees focus mainly on one flower species (their 'major'), and occasionally visit other flowers ('minors') that are less rewarding. Minoring allows tracking of potential alternative resources that might become more profitable with time. This is expected to provide an adaptive benefit under unstable foraging conditions, but to reduce foraging efficiency when resources are steady. We tested how predictability of food sources affects minoring and foraging success, using Bombus terrestris workers that fed on sucrose solution in artificial flowers. Bees exposed to three colour-distinct flower types with fluctuating food rewards performed more minoring (visits to a fourth, nonrewarding flower type) than bees that encountered a stable reward schedule. This difference was mostly due to a higher frequency of flower type shifts in the fluctuating-reward treatment. Flowers of the highest-rewarding type were visited less frequently in the fluctuating-reward than in the stable-reward treatment. This suggests that the fluctuating-reward schedule limited the bees' ability to track the most profitable flower type. Intervals between successive visits were longer in the fluctuating-reward than in the stable-reward treatment, possibly because the fluctuating schedule required time-consuming neural processing. As expected, the number of minoring visits correlated negatively with the number of colour shifts and with foraging success in the stable-reward treatment. In the fluctuating-reward treatment, on the other hand, sucrose intake rates were independent of minoring and colour shift frequencies. We suggest that novelty seeking by foragers can evolve when food sources offer fluctuating rewards, which reduce foraging success but also the cost of exploring new resources.