The binding and recall of snapshot memories in wood ants (<i>Formica rufa</i>L.)

Graham, Paul; Durier, Virginie; Collett, Thomas S

doi:10.1242/jeb.00771

Cited by 44 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(18 reference statements)

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“…Path integration is of limited precision and as a foraging ant repeats a PI-derived path to and from a reliable foraging location, it rapidly becomes familiar with the landscape and forms long-term view-based memories that both specify the exact route (Collett, 2010;Collett et al, 1992;Cornetz, 1910;Graham et al, 2003;Harris et al, 2007;Narendra et al, 2013) and act as an attractor, guiding ants to a familiar goal (Åkesson and Wehner, 2002;Graham et al, 2004;Wystrach et al, 2012). Ants can also form vector memories of route segments, instead of the whole route from feeder to the nest (C. fortis: Collett and Collett, 2009;Collett et al, 1998;; Apis mellifera: Collett et al, 2002;Srinivasan et al, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The acquisition and expression of memories of distance and direction in navigating wood ants

Fernandes

Philippides

Collett

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Wood ants, like other central place foragers, rely on route memories to guide them to and from a reliable food source. They use visual memories of the surrounding scene and probably compass information to control their direction. Do they also remember the length of their route and do they link memories of direction and distance? To answer these questions, we trained wood ant (Formica rufa) foragers in a channel to perform either a single short foraging route or two foraging routes in opposite directions. By shifting the starting position of the route within the channel, but keeping the direction and distance fixed, we tried to ensure that the ants would rely upon vector memories rather than visual memories to decide when to stop. The homeward memories that the ants formed were revealed by placing fed or unfed ants directly into a channel and assessing the direction and distance that they walked without prior performance of the food-ward leg of the journey. This procedure prevented the distance and direction walked being affected by a home vector derived from path integration. Ants that were unfed walked in the feeder direction. Fed ants walked in the opposite direction for a distance related to the separation between start and feeder. Vector memories of a return route can thus be primed by the ants' feeding state and expressed even when the ants have not performed the food-ward route. Tests on ants that have acquired two routes indicate that memories of the direction and distance of the return routes are linked, suggesting that they may be encoded by a common neural population within the ant brain.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The acquisition and expression of memories of distance and direction in navigating wood ants

Fernandes

Philippides

Collett

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Laboratory and field studies using artificial landmarks at the nest (Wehner and Räber, 1979;Wehner et al, 1996;Akesson and Wehner, 2002;Narendra et al, 2007) or a feeder (Wolf and Wehner, 2000;Durier et al, 2003;Graham et al, 2004) have shown how visual landmark information can be used to guide the search for an important location. The basic mechanism is for a single view of the world to be stored at the goal location.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How might ants use panoramic views for route navigation?

Philippides

Baddeley

Chen

et al. 2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYStudies of insect navigation have demonstrated that insects possess an interesting and sophisticated repertoire of visual navigation behaviours. Ongoing research seeks to help us understand how these behaviours are controlled in natural complex environments. A necessary complement to behavioural studies is an understanding of the sensory ecology within which an animal behaves. To this end we have analysed ants'-perspective views of a habitat within which desert ant navigation is well studied. Results from our analysis suggest that: parsimonious visual strategies for homing and route guidance are effective over behaviourally useful distances even in cluttered environments; that these strategies can function effectively using only the skyline heights as input; and that the simplicity and efficacy of using stored views as a visual compass makes it a viable and robust mechanism for route guidance.

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“…A second way that snapshot memories could be used is known as retinal image matching (9). For this mechanism, a view along a route would trigger the snapshot memory that had been acquired at a nearby location, and the individual would move until its view matched the retinal positions and sizes of the features in the remembered snapshot (23). A route would then be encoded as a set of snapshotdefined locations, each of which would act as an attractor from nearby positions (Fig.…”

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How desert ants use a visual landmark for guidance along a habitual route

Collett

2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

104

123

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Many animals learn to follow habitual routes between important locations, but how they encode their routes is still largely unknown. Desert ants traveling between their nest and a food site develop stable, visually guided routes that can wind through desert scrub without the use of trail pheromones. Their route memories are sufficiently robust that if a nest-bound ant is caught at the end of its route and replaced somewhere earlier along it, the ant will recapitulate the route from the release site. Insects appear to use panoramas to recognize when they are on a familiar route. I examine here the cues then used for their guidance. Several mechanisms are known for straight segments of a route; but how does an ant encode a curved route along which both the views it sees, and the directions it takes, are constantly changing? The results here suggest that when an ant travels past a landmark on a familiar route, it uses the gradually changing direction of the landmark to trigger a set of associated learned heading directions. A route through a complex 2D environment could thus be encoded and followed economically if it is divided into panorama-defined segments, with each segment controlled by such a 1D mapping. The solution proposed for the ants would be simple to implement in an autonomous robot.

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The binding and recall of snapshot memories in wood ants (Formica rufaL.)

Abstract: snapshot recall, provided that the components of a snapshot are bound together.

Cited by 44 publications

References 17 publications

The acquisition and expression of memories of distance and direction in navigating wood ants

The acquisition and expression of memories of distance and direction in navigating wood ants

How might ants use panoramic views for route navigation?

How desert ants use a visual landmark for guidance along a habitual route

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