Prepared learning in plant–pollinator interactions

Abstract

Animal pollinators, from insects to vertebrates, gather information about their environment in the form of floral cues and signals and use this information to make decisions. Plant traits such as colours, patterns, scents and shapes can influence pollinator behaviour, leading to the development of preferences and biases and the evolution of prepared learning, and these can work in both appetitive and aversive ways. Aspects of pollinator sensory and cognitive systems and their resulting behaviours are evolving in response to plant traits, which are in turn evolving in response to pollinator behaviour and sensory abilities. In this paper, we propose prepared learning as a framework for studying animal learning within pollination systems. Prepared learning is an established conceptual framework that proposes that animals learn some associations better than others due to an evolved match with the environment. Prepared learning can be a useful evolutionary strategy for animals because they are not attending to all the cues, thus hindering learning. We offer a brief history of the concept, explore examples of prepared learning in pollination and outline ideas for the design of field and laboratory studies, suggesting future directions for the field. Our proposed framework provides us with information needed to predict patterns of prepared learning in pollinators. By studying prepared learning in plant–pollinator interactions, we gain a better understanding of learning in an ecologically and evolutionarily relevant context and can test long unresolved questions about preparedness.