They find evidence that bumblebees feel sting

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Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have shown that bumblebees can alter their response to “harmful” (painful) stimuli to achieve a higher sugar reward. That is why they say that the possibility of suffering and suffering from insects should be taken seriously.

Queen Mary professor Lars Chittka author of new book The Mind of a Bee“Insects used to be considered simple reflex automata responding to noxious stimuli,” says the lead researcher. only with withdrawal reflexes. Our new study shows that “responses are more flexible in bees and can suppress such reflexes when needed, for example, when there is an extra sweet pleasure. This flexibility is consistent with a subjective capacity to experience pain.”

“If insects can feel pain, humans have an ethical obligation not to cause them unnecessary suffering.”

The first author of the study, Matilda gibbonsA PhD student at Queen Mary University of London said: “Scientists have traditionally they saw insects as insensitive robots, preventing injuries with simple reflexes. We found that bumblebees respond to damage non-reflexively, suggesting that they feel pain. If insects can sense pain, humans have an ethical obligation not to cause them unnecessary pain. But UK animal welfare laws do not protect insects; Our study shows that maybe they should.”

In the paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers used a “motivational compensation paradigm” in which animals must flexibly compensate for two competing motivations. The bees were given a choice between unheated or harmfully heated (55 °C) feeders with different sucrose concentrations and marked with different colours.

Evidence found that bumblebees sting deserves ethical treatment pexel

When both feeders were of high quality and one feeder was harmfully hot, bees tended to avoid heated feeders. But bees were more likely to use hot feeders when they contained a higher concentration of sucrose.

The team also extended the motivational compensation paradigm by making sure that compensation is based on cues (colors) that bees learn to associate with a higher sugar reward. Because the bees used learned color cues in their decisions, compensation was based on brain processing rather than just environmental processing. In other words, the bees decided to take some pain or discomfort in order to get a higher sugar reward.

ethical treatment

This showed that compensation was mediated in the central nervous system; an ability thought to be consistent with the ability to feel pain in other animals. The researchers say this is not a formal test because of the subjective nature of pain experience, but the possibility of insect pain and suffering should be taken seriously.

Professor Chittka says “Insects (unlike vertebrates) are not currently protected by any legislation. in research laboratories and in the breeding industry that produces insects for human consumption or in relation to their treatment as traditional animal feed. The legal framework for ethical treatment of animals may need to be expanded.”

Humans are just one of many species capable of enjoying and suffering.

growing evidence of some form of susceptibility in insects It imposes an obligation on us to protect the environments that shape their unique and seemingly bizarre minds. Humans are just one of many species capable of enjoying and suffering, including in their painful states. Even miniature creatures like insects deserve our respect and ethical treatment and the duty to minimize suffering within our power.”

Source: ecovant.

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