About

Felicity Muth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on neural mechanisms for attention, cognition, and emotion, contributing to the understanding of animal behavior through neurobiological approaches. She is affiliated with the College of Biological Sciences and is based in Briggs Hall, Davis, CA. Her work involves exploring the neural substrates underlying complex behaviors, aiming to advance knowledge in neurobiology and behavior.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Business
• Cognitive psychology
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Toxicology
• Audiology
• Medicine
• Neuroscience

Selected publications

• Data from: Bumblebee queens are better at olfactory learning and more sensitive to scents than workers

  DRYAD · 2026-03-02

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Intra-specific variation in cognition can reflect ecological demands, yet cognitive performance can be driven by non-cognitive processes. Bumblebees have been a long-standing model in the study of cognition for their aptitude at learning associations, but nearly all research has been limited to one life stage: foraging workers. Queen bumblebees also forage, and previous work shows that they learn visual associations with fewer errors than workers, offering a useful comparison of the drivers of variation in cognition. Here we tested whether queens’ better learning performance holds across another modality: olfaction, and whether performance could be driven by non-cognitive variables related to their larger size, including peripheral sensitivity. We first assessed olfactory learning in wild Bombus vosnesenskii and found that queens learned with fewer errors than workers. Following additional training and sensitivity tests, queens and workers did not differ, ruling out non-cognitive variables as drivers of learning differences. In a second experiment, we tested scent sensitivity under more controlled conditions in B. impatiens and found that queens were more sensitive. Our findings confirm learning differences between bumblebee castes and show that queens also have greater peripheral sensitivity, hinting at adaptive drivers of these intra-specific differences.

  PublisherDOI

• Bumblebee queens are better at olfactory learning and more sensitive to scents than workers

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2026-05-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Intraspecific variation in cognition can reflect ecological demands, yet cognitive performance can be driven by non-cognitive processes. Bumblebees have been a long-standing model in the study of cognition for their aptitude at learning associations, but nearly all research has been limited to one life stage: foraging workers. Queen bumblebees also forage, and previous work shows that they learn visual associations with fewer errors than workers, offering a useful comparison of the drivers of variation in cognition. Here, we tested whether queens' better learning performance holds across another modality: olfaction, and whether performance could be driven by non-cognitive variables related to their larger size including peripheral sensitivity. We first assessed olfactory learning in wild Bombus vosnesenskii and found that queens learned with fewer errors than workers. Following additional training and sensitivity tests, queens and workers did not differ, ruling out non-cognitive variables as driving learning differences in this context. In a second experiment, we tested scent sensitivity under more controlled conditions in Bombus impatiens and found that queens were more sensitive. Our findings confirm learning differences between bumblebee castes and show that queens also have greater peripheral sensitivity, hinting at adaptive drivers of these intraspecific differences.

  PublisherDOI

• Bumblebees exposed to a novel ‘bee-safe’ insecticide have impaired alloparental care and reproductive output

  Insectes Sociaux · 2025-08-11

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bumblebee queens differ in brain morphology but not learning performance across life stages

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-10-28

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Animal cognition and brain morphology can vary between individuals and across a lifetime as a function of social and ecological requirements. Bumblebees have distinct ecological pressures acting upon individuals at different times: young queens (gynes) and workers share similar challenges as they both forage as part of the colony, but only queens overwinter and start a colony the following season, switching to a reproductive stage. Here, we compared bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) visual learning and brain morphology across age-matched workers and gynes and older reproductive queens. We expected foraging-stage gynes to be better at visual learning than reproductive queens and visual regions to be reduced in the reproductive queens, in line with work in other social insects. However, we found that gynes and queens performed similarly, and both performed better than workers. We also found that reproductive queens had larger olfactory regions (antennal lobes) than gynes, while visual regions (medulla and lobula) did not differ, indicating a greater investment in olfactory regions in this later reproductive stage. Brain regions also scaled differently with body size for gynes and workers. Overall, our results provide behavioral and morphological evidence that social and ecological roles in a colony shape cognition and neural investment.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bumblebees as a powerful model for studying cognitive ecology

  Trends in Cognitive Sciences · 2025-12-03 · 1 citations

  review1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Felicity Muth

  Current Biology · 2025-08-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nectar metabolomes contribute to pollination syndromes

  New Phytologist · 2025-05-14 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  'Pollination syndromes', where convergent floral signals reflect selection from a functional pollinator group, are often characterized by physical features, yet floral rewards such as nectar may also reflect selection from pollinators. We asked whether nectar chemistry shows evidence of convergence across functional pollinator groups, i.e. a 'chemical pollination syndrome'. We used untargeted metabolomics to compare nectar and leaf chemical profiles across 19 bee- and bird-syndrome species, focusing on Salvia spp. (Lamiaceae), selected to maximize switching events between pollination syndromes. We found that independently derived bird-syndrome nectar showed convergence on nectar traits distinct from bee-syndrome nectar, primarily driven by the composition and concentration of alkaloid profiles. We did not find evidence for 'passive leaking' of nectar compounds from leaves since metabolite abundances were uncorrelated across tissues and many nectar metabolites were not present in leaves. Nectar and leaf metabolomes were strongly decoupled from phylogenetic relationships within Salvia. These results suggest that functional pollinator groups may drive the evolution of floral reward chemistry, consistent with our 'chemical pollination syndrome' hypothesis and indicative of selection by pollinators, but we also consider alternative explanations. In addition, our results support the notion that nectar chemistry can be decoupled from that of other tissues.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Wild bumblebees use both absolute and relative evaluation when foraging

  Behavioral Ecology · 2024-01-01 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Foraging theory assumes that animals assess value based on objective payoffs; however, animals often evaluate rewards comparatively, forming expectations based on recent experience. This form of evaluation may be particularly relevant for nectar foragers such as bumblebees, where individuals can visit thousands of flowers daily that vary in nectar quality. While many animals, including bees, demonstrate reference-based evaluation in experimental contexts, it is unclear whether this occurs in the wild. Here, we asked how daily experience with wildflower nectar influenced wild bumblebees’ reward evaluation. We measured the daily nectar concentration of bee-visited wildflowers (Penstemon spp.), before presenting foragers with conspecific flowers filled with a range of artificial nectar concentrations. We recorded bees’ acceptance of artificial nectar, the probability of subsequent visits to flowers on the same plant, and residence time. While bees had a minimum threshold of nectar acceptability that was unaffected by experience, when there was higher-concentration environmental nectar, they were less likely to accept lower-quality rewards on manipulated plants. Bees also visited more flowers and stayed longer on plants with higher-concentration nectar. This study shows evidence for both absolute and reference-based evaluation in wild bees and points towards differences between bees’ behavior in lab- and wild-foraging contexts.

  PublisherDOI

• Field‐realistic exposure to the novel insecticide flupyradifurone reduces reproductive output in a bumblebee (<i>Bombus impatiens</i>)

  Journal of Applied Ecology · 2024-06-18 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Novel insecticides are continuously being developed for application in response to increased legal restriction of previously developed insecticides and resistance in target insects. These novel insecticides, such as flupyradifurone (FPF), remain relatively untested on non‐target organisms, including bumblebees. Further, existing tests on honeybees tend to focus on adult mortality and thus sub‐lethal effects, such as impacts on reproductive output, are neglected, despite their importance for population‐level impacts. To address if the novel insecticide FPF has sub‐lethal effects on bumblebee reproduction and behaviour, we established microcolonies and chronically exposed them to field‐realistic concentrations over a 14‐day period. We found that exposure to FPF reduced the bumblebees' reproductive output in terms of the number of larvae produced and the mean mass of each larval instar. FPF‐treated bees also stored less sucrose and constructed fewer honeypots. However, adult bumblebee mortality was similar between control and FPF‐exposed microcolonies. Our results show that field‐realistic FPF exposure leads to increased larval mortality and/or delayed larval development, as well as reduced nectar storage, without affecting adult mortality. Policy implications . Insecticides that impair bumblebee reproduction can have long‐term population‐level consequences, even if adult bees do not experience increased mortality. Despite this fact, sub‐lethal effects, such as impacts on reproduction, are not mandatorily assessed within the regulatory process. Our findings highlight the importance of determining sub‐lethal effects of pesticides across developmental stages, as well as using pollinator species other than honeybees within the regulatory process.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pollinator cognition and the function of complex rewards

  Trends in Ecology & Evolution · 2024-07-16 · 22 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Exploring cognition with multiple rewards: A new dimension into the cognitive ecology of pollination

  NSF · $686k · 2021–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Anne S. Leonard

  University of Nevada, Reno

  21 shared

• Claire T. Hemingway

  Austin Peay State University

  16 shared

• Harry Siviter

  University of Bristol

  15 shared

• Susan D. Healy

  University of St Andrews

  7 shared

• Daniel R. Papaj

  University of Arizona

  5 shared

• Jacob S. Francis

  Florida Atlantic University

  5 shared

• Shalene Jha

  4 shared

• Clara Stuligross

  University of California, Davis

  4 shared