Ecology dictates the value of memory for foraging bees

“Ecological intelligence” hypotheses posit that animal learning and memory evolve to meet the demands posed by foraging and, together with social intelligence and cognitive buffer hypotheses, provide a key framework for understanding cognitive evolution.1, 2, 3, 4, 5 However, identifying the critical environments where cognitive investment reaps significant benefits has proved challenging.6, 7, 8 Here, we capitalize upon seasonal variation in forage availability for a social insect model (Bombus terrestris audax) to establish how the benefits of short-term memory, assayed using a radial arm maze (RAM), vary with resource availability. Following a staggered design over 2 years, whereby bees from standardized colonies at identical life-history stages underwent cognitive testing before foraging in the wild, we found that RAM performance predicts foraging efficiency—a key determinant of colony fitness—in plentiful spring foraging conditions but that this relationship is reversed during the summer floral dearth. Our results suggest that the selection for enhanced cognitive abilities is unlikely to be limited to harsh environments where food is hard to find or extract,5,9, 10 highlighting instead that the challenges of rich and plentiful environments, which present multiple options in short succession, could be a broad driver in the evolution of certain cognitive traits