Culture can be defined as the set of learned behaviors, customs, or norms, that have been passed on through observation or instruction within a social group. Through thousands of years of iteration and incremental progress, humans have gone a long way in developing culture, passing it on from one generation to the next, and also changing parts of culture to keep up with the changing times.
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Animals have been observed to have the capacity for culture as well, mostly seen in Japanese macaques, crows, and even sheep. But these are mostly vertebrate animals, and it was unthinkable or rather, it was assumed that this capacity was not present in invertebrates. It was thought that the behaviors exhibited by invertebrates like bees were innate or instinctive. However, a research has shown that there is a possibility that invertebrates like bees may have the capacity for culture.
It’s the first step toward determining whether bees can develop their own culture. The first thing that the researchers needed to do was to design an experiment in which bees would have to solve a complex two-step puzzle. To any humans, such a feat may be simple, but to a bee, it is considered extremely difficult.
The experiment was designed by UK behavioral ecologist Alice Bridges who was curious about the concept of culture in invertebrates being innate. She wanted to see if there was a possibility that bees could learn socially how to solve this complex problem by observation and demonstration.
First, they had to train some bees to solve the problem, which admitted required a lot of time for trial and error. It required several intermediate rewards so that the bees may figure out the solution. But in time, it became like clockwork for the trained bees.
The next step was to put another bee, which hasn’t seen the puzzle and hasn’t been trained to solve it, along with the trained bee. This was when the social gears of bees starting turning, and their team found that the bees had the ability to learn and pass on information in similar fashion as other animals that exhibit a capacity for culture.
However, the only issue for bees is that they have a relatively shorter lifespan, and so being able to pass on knowledge or information may be difficult if, after one generation is born, the previous one dies out right away. Then, it would be quite challenging to develop culture that lasts more than one generation.
Bridges and her team are hopeful, however, that this proves that this kind of socially learned behavior and culture is not exclusive to humans or vertebrates, but that invertebrates may also have the capacity.
(Video credit: nature video/Youtube)
Source: neatorama