Czaczkes, Tomer J. and Weichselgartner, Tobias and Bernadou, Abel and Heinze, Juergen (2016) The Effect of Trail Pheromone and Path Confinement on Learning of Complex Routes in the Ant Lasius niger. PLOS ONE, 11 (3): e0149720. ISSN 1932-6203,
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Route learning is key to the survival of many central place foragers, such as bees and many ants. For ants which lay pheromone trails, the presence of a trail may act as an important source of information about whether an error has been made. The presence of trail pheromone has been demonstrated to support route learning, and the effect of pheromones on route choice have been reported to persist even after the pheromones have been removed. This could be explained in two ways: the pheromone may constrain the ants onto the correct route, thus preventing errors and aiding learning. Alternatively, the pheromones may act as a 'reassurance', signalling that the learner is on the right path and that learning the path is worthwhile. Here, we disentangle pheromone presence from route confinement in order to test these hypotheses, using the ant Lasius niger as a model. Unexpectedly, we did not find any evidence that pheromones support route learning. Indeed, there was no evidence that ants confined to the correct route learned at all. Thus, while we cannot support the 'reassurance' hypothesis, we can rule out the 'confinement' hypothesis. Other findings, such as a reduction in pheromone deposition in the presence of trail pheromones, are remarkably consistent with previous experiments. As previously reported, ants which make errors on their outward journey upregulate pheromone deposition on their return. Surprisingly, ants which would go on to make an error down-regulate pheromone deposition on their outward journey, hinting at a capacity for ants to gauge the quality of their own memories.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | MELOPHORUS-BAGOTI; DESERT ANTS; LANDMARK GUIDANCE; FOOD RECRUITMENT; APIS-MELLIFERA; WOOD ANTS; BEHAVIOR; NAVIGATION; FORMICIDAE; MEMORY; |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 570 Life sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie > Zoologie/Evolutionsbiologie (Prof. Dr. Jürgen Heinze) |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Mar 2019 13:33 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Mar 2019 13:33 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/3253 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
