Trail-laying and recruitment to sugary foods by foraging red wood-ants Formica aquilonia Yarrow (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Lamb, Anne E.; Ollason, J. G.

doi:10.1016/0376-6357(94)90040-x

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In regard to when pheromone is dropped, we refer to Mailleux et al (2004), who state that "Scouts never laid a trail on their first outward journey to the foraging area, but most of them started laying a trail after having discovered the food source". A similar finding was also made by Lamb and Ollason (1994): "The increase in traffic was significantly greater on the two-way bridge than on the control and one-way bridges, indicating that replete ants returning from the bait left a trail on the homeward route, which other ants subsequently followed". However, some ant species are known to lay pheromone more or less continually (Deneubourg et al 1990) and the analysis can be easily extended for that case as well.…”

Section: Nature Of Movement Of Antssupporting

confidence: 75%

Trail formation in ants. A generalized Polya urn process

et al. 2010

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Faced with a choice of paths, an ant chooses a path with a higher concentration of pheromone. Subsequently, it drops pheromone on the path chosen. The reinforcement of the pheromone-following behavior favors the selection of an initially discovered path as the preferred path. This may cause a long path to emerge as the preferred path, were it discovered earlier than a shorter path. However, the shortness of the shorter path offsets some of the pheromone accumulated on the initially discovered longer path. In this paper, we model the trail formation behavior as a generalized Polya urn process. For k equal length paths, we give the distribution of pheromone at any time and highlight its sole dependence on the initial pheromone concentrations on paths. Additionally, we propose a method to incorporate the lengths of paths in the urn process and derive how the pheromone distribution alters on its inclusion. Analytically, we show that it is possible, under certain conditions, to reverse the initial bias that may be present in favor of paths that were discovered prior to the discovery of more efficient (shorter) paths. This addresses the Plasticity-Stability dilemma for ants, by laying out the conditions under which the system will remain stable or become plastic and change the path. Finally, we validate our analysis and results using simulations.

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Section: Nature Of Movement Of Antssupporting

confidence: 75%

Trail formation in ants. A generalized Polya urn process

et al. 2010

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“…The experiments began by a 24 h food deprivation period, after which the apparatus was put in place with 4.5 cm gaps. For different purposes, in different setups other ant species have been successfully compelled to forage unidirectionally before different authors [22], [38]–[40]. The apparatus used in our experiments (Fig.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ants Can Learn to Forage on One-Way Trails

et al. 2009

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The trails formed by many ant species between nest and food source are two-way roads on which outgoing and returning workers meet and touch each other all along. The way to get back home, after grasping a food load, is to take the same route on which they have arrived from the nest. In many species such trails are chemically marked by pheromones providing orientation cues for the ants to find their way. Other species rely on their vision and use landmarks as cues. We have developed a method to stop foraging ants from shuttling on two-way trails. The only way to forage is to take two separate roads, as they cannot go back on their steps after arriving at the food or at the nest. The condition qualifies as a problem because all their orientation cues – chemical, visual or any other - are disrupted, as all of them cannot but lead the ants back to the route on which they arrived. We have found that workers of the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens rubropilosa can solve the problem. They could not only find the alternative way, but also used the unidirectional traffic system to forage effectively. We suggest that their ability is an evolutionary consequence of the need to deal with environmental irregularities that cannot be negotiated by means of excessively stereotyped behavior, and that it is but an example of a widespread phenomenon. We also suggest that our method can be adapted to other species, invertebrate and vertebrate, in the study of orientation, memory, perception, learning and communication.

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“…These trails are marked with species-speci®c chemical deposits that serve to recruit and orient nest foragers (Horstmann 1976;Rosengren & Fortelius 1987;Bestmann et al 1992;Lamb & Ollason 1994b). These trails are marked with species-speci®c chemical deposits that serve to recruit and orient nest foragers (Horstmann 1976;Rosengren & Fortelius 1987;Bestmann et al 1992;Lamb & Ollason 1994b).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ants of the subgenus Formica often build cleared`highways' that radiate from the nest mound much like the spokes of a wheel. These trails are marked with species-speci®c chemical deposits that serve to recruit and orient nest foragers (Horstmann 1976;Rosengren & Fortelius 1987;Bestmann et al 1992;Lamb & Ollason 1994b). Some of the trunk trails may fork, necessitating a decision on the part of the ant to follow either the right or left branch of the fork.…”

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confidence: 99%

Memory of Location and Site Recognition in the Ant Formica uralensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Salo

Rosengren

2001

Ethology

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Spatial recognition cues used in site fidelity in the ant Formica uralensis Ruzsky were studied using outdoor and laboratory arenas. Ant workers visiting symmetrically spaced feeders were colour‐marked corresponding to the initial feeder visited during sampling. The effect of manipulating environmental cues on the mean ‘spatial specialization’ of the population was measured. Site recognition appears to be based on visual landmark/canopy cues. However, ants maintained some fidelity when shielded from these cues, suggesting the involvement of additional cues. When ridding our experimental device of olfactory deposits and shielding visual cues, site fidelity was lost. Idiothetic and/or geomagnetic cues are thought to provide spatial references to visual or olfactory landmarks. Altering nest position relative to the arena and changing the geomagnetic field within the arena in our study, however, did nothing to the site fidelity of visually deprived and non‐deprived foragers. We conclude that site fidelity is developed in a visually structured environment but supplemented by an olfactory backup system that is probably based on discrete home range markings rather than radial odour trails. We demonstrate furthermore that the visual component involved in site location can be stored in the memory of individual F. uralensis foragers during a 6‐month hibernation period.

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Trail-laying and recruitment to sugary foods by foraging red wood-ants Formica aquilonia Yarrow (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

Trail formation in ants. A generalized Polya urn process

Trail formation in ants. A generalized Polya urn process

Ants Can Learn to Forage on One-Way Trails

Memory of Location and Site Recognition in the Ant Formica uralensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

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