Effects of experience on use of orientation cues in the giant tropical ant

Harrison, Jon F.; Fewell, Jennifer H.; Stiller, Tammy M.; Breed, Michael D.

doi:10.1016/0003-3472(89)90076-6

Cited by 107 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The fact that these paths are idiosyncratic suggests that ants are guided by individually learnt cues rather than social cues such as pheromones. In fact, we know route guidance is based mainly on visual cues (Collett, 1992;Harrison et al, 1989;Reid et al, 2011;Wehner et al, 1996) but can also include information about magnetic anomalies (Buehlmann et al, 2012), odour (Steck et al, 2009) and wind direction (Wolf and Wehner, 2000). If experienced ants are displaced from one location on their route to another (e.g.…”

Section: A Simple Model Of Ant Visual Route Navigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insect navigation: do ants live in the now?

Graham

Mangan

2015

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Visual navigation is a critical behaviour for many animals, and it has been particularly well studied in ants. Decades of ant navigation research have uncovered many ways in which efficient navigation can be implemented in small brains. For example, ants show us how visual information can drive navigation via procedural rather than map-like instructions. Two recent behavioural observations highlight interesting adaptive ways in which ants implement visual guidance. Firstly, it has been shown that the systematic nest searches of ants can be biased by recent experience of familiar scenes. Secondly, ants have been observed to show temporary periods of confusion when asked to repeat a route segment, even if that route segment is very familiar. Taken together, these results indicate that the navigational decisions of ants take into account their recent experiences as well as the currently perceived environment.

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Section: A Simple Model Of Ant Visual Route Navigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insect navigation: do ants live in the now?

Graham

Mangan

2015

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…However, for experienced individuals, communication may result in a conflict between an individual's private information in the form of memory and the social information supplied by nestmates, such as trail pheromone. When a conflict arises, it seems that private information is often prioritized Harrison et al, 1989;Fourcassie and Beugnon, 1988;Grüter et al, 2008) [but see Linepithema humile ]. Even in naive individuals without private information, social information does not eliminate errors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ant foraging on complex trails: route learning and the role of trail pheromones inLasius niger

Czaczkes

Grüter

Ellis

et al. 2012

Journal of Experimental Biology

109

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SUMMARYAnts are central place foragers and use multiple information sources to navigate between the nest and feeding sites. Individual ants rapidly learn a route, and often prioritize memory over pheromone trails when tested on a simple trail with a single bifurcation. However, in nature, ants often forage at locations that are reached via more complex routes with multiple trail bifurcations. Such routes may be more difficult to learn, and thus ants would benefit from additional information. We hypothesized that trail pheromones play a more significant role in ant foraging on complex routes, either by assisting in navigation or route learning or both. We studied Lasius niger workers foraging on a doubly bifurcating trail with four end points. Route learning was slower and errors greater on alternating (e.g. left-right) versus repeating routes (e.g. left-left), with error rates of 32 and 3%, respectively. However, errors on alternating routes decreased by 30% when trail pheromone was present. Trail pheromones also aid route learning, leading to reduced errors in subsequent journeys without pheromone. If an experienced forager makes an error when returning to a food source, it reacts by increasing pheromone deposition on the return journey. In addition, high levels of trail pheromone suppress further pheromone deposition. This negative feedback mechanism may act to conserve pheromone or to regulate recruitment. Taken together, these results demonstrate further complexity and sophistication in the foraging system of ant colonies, especially in the role of trail pheromones and their relationship with learning and the use of private information (memory) in a complex environment.

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“…Ants are also interesting because of the multiple sensory cues that contribute to their navigation, particularly olfaction, with long range cues from wind-borne volatiles [23][24][25] and short-range cues from pheromone trails on the ground [26]. Many species of ants lay pheromone trails to mark foraging routes, and some of these species are also helped by remembered visual cues [27][28][29][30]. Once visual cues are acquired, they may dominate pheromone cues in experimental situations in which the two cues indicate different directions of travel [29,30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scene perception and the visual control of travel direction in navigating wood ants

Collett

Lent

Graham

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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This review reflects a few of Mike Land's many and varied contributions to visual science. In it, we show for wood ants, as Mike has done for a variety of animals, including readers of this piece, what can be learnt from a detailed analysis of an animal's visually guided eye, head or body movements. In the case of wood ants, close examination of their body movements, as they follow visually guided routes, is starting to reveal how they perceive and respond to their visual world and negotiate a path within it. We describe first some of the mechanisms that underlie the visual control of their paths, emphasizing that vision is not the ant's only sense. In the second part, we discuss how remembered local shape-dependent and global shape-independent features of a visual scene may interact in guiding the ant's path.

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Effects of experience on use of orientation cues in the giant tropical ant

Cited by 107 publications

References 4 publications

Insect navigation: do ants live in the now?

Insect navigation: do ants live in the now?

Ant foraging on complex trails: route learning and the role of trail pheromones inLasius niger

Scene perception and the visual control of travel direction in navigating wood ants

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