Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Learning in Insect Pollinators and Herbivores

Learning in Insect Pollinators and Herbivores The relationship between plants and insects is influenced by insects’ behavioral decisions during foraging and oviposition. In mutualistic pollinators and antagonistic herbivores, past experience (learning) affects such decisions, which ultimately can impact plant fitness. The higher levels of dietary generalism in pollinators than in herbivores may be an explanation for the differences in learning seen between these two groups. Generalist pollinators experience a high level of environmental variation, which we suggest favors associative learning. Larval herbivores employ habituation and sensitization—strategies useful in their less variable environments. Exceptions to these patterns based on habitats, mobility, and life history provide critical tests of current theory. Relevant plant traits should be under selection to be easily learned and remembered in pollinators and difficult to learn in herbivores. Insect learning thereby has the potential to have an important, yet largely unexplored, role in plant-insect coevolution. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Entomology Annual Reviews

Learning in Insect Pollinators and Herbivores

Loading next page...
 
/lp/annual-reviews/learning-in-insect-pollinators-and-herbivores-NCCzw1rlg0

References (160)

Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
ISSN
0066-4170
eISSN
1545-4487
DOI
10.1146/annurev-ento-031616-034903
pmid
27813668
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The relationship between plants and insects is influenced by insects’ behavioral decisions during foraging and oviposition. In mutualistic pollinators and antagonistic herbivores, past experience (learning) affects such decisions, which ultimately can impact plant fitness. The higher levels of dietary generalism in pollinators than in herbivores may be an explanation for the differences in learning seen between these two groups. Generalist pollinators experience a high level of environmental variation, which we suggest favors associative learning. Larval herbivores employ habituation and sensitization—strategies useful in their less variable environments. Exceptions to these patterns based on habitats, mobility, and life history provide critical tests of current theory. Relevant plant traits should be under selection to be easily learned and remembered in pollinators and difficult to learn in herbivores. Insect learning thereby has the potential to have an important, yet largely unexplored, role in plant-insect coevolution.

Journal

Annual Review of EntomologyAnnual Reviews

Published: Jan 31, 2017

There are no references for this article.