Response-specific behavioral plasticity in habituation triggered by repeated visual looming stimuli in foraging bumblebees (Bombus terrestris).

Abstract

Habituation and dishabituation are fundamental adaptive processes that govern how animals respond to repeated stimuli. Habituation is defined as a decline in response to irrelevant stimuli, and dishabituation reactivates this response upon qualitatively different stimulation. Here, we explored these processes in bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) by exposing freely foraging individuals to a repeated overhead looming stimulus, followed by a distinct vibration. We identified three defensive responses-flight, disturbance leg-lift response, and startle-and found that only flight probability showed robust habituation and dishabituation. Disturbance leg-lift response remained consistently frequent, whereas startle initially increased and later declined when flight was reinstated. Our findings demonstrate clear habituation and dishabituation of defensive responses in bumblebees within a novel free-flying testing paradigm, providing initial support for response-specific plasticity mechanisms. The results underscore the importance of differentiating among multiple defensive responses to better understand the mechanisms driving habituation and dishabituation, suggesting that bumblebee defense strategies are finely tuned across multiple stimulus-response pathways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).