Please cite this article in press as: Mc Cabe, S. I., et al. Vibrating donor-partners during trophallaxis modulate asso- ciative learning ability of food receivers in the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata. Learning and Motivation (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2014.10.005 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model YLMOT-1431; No. of Pages 11 Learning and Motivation xxx (2015) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Learning and Motivation j o ur nal ho me pag e: www.elsevier.com/locate/l&m Vibrating donor-partners during trophallaxis modulate associative learning ability of food receivers in the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata Sofia I. Mc Cabe a , Michael Hrncir b , Walter M. Farina a,∗ a Grupo de Estudio de Insectos Sociales, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, IFIBYNE-CONICET, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón II, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA Buenos Aires, Argentina b Departamento de Ciências Animais, Universidade Federal Rural do Semi-Árido, CEP: 59625-900, Mossoró, RN, Brazil a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 14 July 2014 Received in revised form 21 October 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Stingless bees Mellipona quadrifasciata Multimodal communication Thoracic vibrations Associative learning a b s t r a c t Multiple sensory modalities within a communication context lead to an increased respon- siveness of the receptor. Due to this increase in attention when exposed to multiple stimuli, it is possible that the learning ability of a receiver is modulated through com- munication signals. Stingless bees (Apidae; Meliponini) are a good model to use in order to investigate communication systems because they display a much wider behavioural repertoire regarding foraging and communication than the thoroughly studied honey- bee Apis mellifera. Similar to honeybees, meliponine bees show appetitive unconditioned responses (extension of the proboscis after contacting sugar with the antennae) that may be conditioned to odour. Such associative learning events take place within the nest, for instance, when a successful forager unloads the nectar collected in the field to receiver partners (trophallaxis). During these contacts, receivers obtain multimodal information about the collected resource, such as its sugar content, its specific scent, and, in case of several meliponine species such as Melipona quadrifasciata, thoracic pulsed vibrations pro- duced by the food donors. These vibrations correlate with the profitability of the resource exploited by the forager. With this in mind, we asked whether and to what extent food receivers in stingless bee colonies (M. quadrifasciata) integrate this multimodal informa- tion – vibratory–olfactory–gustatory – while receiving food from foragers. We found that the scented food elicited stronger vibrations (longer and more frequent vibrations with an overall higher duty cycle) than unscented food of equal sugar content. We also observed a positive correlation between the amount of vibrations a bee received during trophallaxis and its subsequent learning performance in a proboscis extension response conditioning procedure. Our findings suggest that the vibrations during trophallaxis affect the receiver’s behaviour by modulating its ability to establish the food-odour association. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Communication and social learning are key aspects to understanding the success of eusocial insects. Even so, the potential interactions between communication signals and learning are poorly understood (Partan & Marler, 2005). The stingless bee (Apidae; Meliponini) is an interesting organism with which to tackle this subject. These Neotropical social bees share many neural substrates with the honeybee Apis mellifera (Michener, 2000), which is, without doubt, one of the best studied insect ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: walter@fbmc.fcen.uba.ar (W.M. Farina). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2014.10.005 0023-9690/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.