Social learning in insects

Introduction Our understanding of insect learning has changed dramatically in the past few decades and only recently has it become well established that learning affects all major insect activities including feeding, predator avoidance, social interactions and sexual behavior. Whereas we understand individual learning in insects rather well, the role of social learning in this diverse group is still not clear. Until recently, there have been no research programs devoted to examining insect social learning. Furthermore, students of insect behaviour who worked on topics relevant to social learning typically did not relate their research to the literature on social learning, which has focused on vertebrates. Examples provided below include studies on intergenerational transfer of substrate preference in a variety of insects and communication about food in eusocial insects. My brief review of insect social learning begins with general considerations of how the characteristics of insects could affect the prevalence of social learning in this large and diverse group. I then divide my analysis of what is known about socially influenced learning into two parts, one devoted to the majority of insects that are solitary, and the other to the well studied minority that are highly social.