Dr Elli Leadbeater (Royal Holloway) - What evolves in the evolution of social learning? A social insect perspective

The social world offers constant opportunities to benefit from the experience of others. From human societies to insect colonies, animals capitalize upon those opportunities in an astoundingly diverse array of contexts, but we still know little about how natural selection might shape this process on a proximate level. Here, I will focus on insect societies to explore the evolution of social learning from the perspective of both sender and receiver. Based on a series of experiments with social bees, I will present an associative account of social learning, explore how natural selection might facilitate associative processes, and discuss the evidence that would help us to fully understand how animals learn from others.