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Barrie R, Haalck L, Risse B, Nowotny T, Graham P, Buehlmann C. Trail using ants follow idiosyncratic routes in complex landscapes. Learn Behav 2024; 52:105-113. [PMID: 37993707 PMCID: PMC10924020 DOI: 10.3758/s13420-023-00615-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023]
Abstract
A large volume of research on individually navigating ants has shown how path integration and visually guided navigation form a major part of the ant navigation toolkit for many species and are sufficient mechanisms for successful navigation. One of the behavioural markers of the interaction of these mechanisms is that experienced foragers develop idiosyncratic routes that require that individual ants have personal and unique visual memories that they use to guide habitual routes between the nest and feeding sites. The majority of ants, however, inhabit complex cluttered environments and social pheromone trails are often part of the collective recruitment, organisation and navigation of these foragers. We do not know how individual navigation interacts with collective behaviour along shared trails in complex natural environments. We thus asked here if wood ants that forage through densely cluttered woodlands where they travel along shared trails repeatedly follow the same routes or if they choose a spread of paths within the shared trail. We recorded three long homing trajectories of 20 individual wood ants in their natural woodland habitat. We found that wood ants follow idiosyncratic routes when navigating along shared trails through highly complex visual landscapes. This shows that ants rely on individual memories for habitual route guidance even in cluttered environments when chemical trail information is available. We argue that visual cues are likely to be the dominant sensory modality for the idiosyncratic routes. These experiments shed new light on how ants, or insects in general, navigate through complex multimodal environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert Barrie
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK
| | - Lars Haalck
- Institute for Geoinformatics and Institute for Computer Science, University of Münster, Heisenbergstraße 2, 48149, Münster, Germany
| | - Benjamin Risse
- Institute for Geoinformatics and Institute for Computer Science, University of Münster, Heisenbergstraße 2, 48149, Münster, Germany
| | - Thomas Nowotny
- School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK
| | - Paul Graham
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK
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Notomi Y, Kazawa T, Maezawa S, Kanzaki R, Haupt SS. Use of Visual Information by Ant Species Occurring in Similar Urban Anthropogenic Environments. Zoolog Sci 2022; 39:529-544. [PMID: 36495488 DOI: 10.2108/zs220035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2022] [Accepted: 07/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Many insects, including ants, are known to respond visually to conspicuous objects. In this study, we compared orientation in an arena containing only a black target beacon as local information in six species of ants of widely varying degree of phylogenic relatedness, foraging strategy, and eye morphology (Aphaenogaster, Brachyponera, Camponotus, Formica, and two Lasius spp.), often found associated in similar urban anthropogenic habitats. Four species of ants displayed orientation toward the beacon, with two orienting toward it directly, while the other two approached it via convoluted paths. The two remaining species did not show any orientation with respect to the beacon. The results did not correlate with morphological parameters of the visual systems and could not be fully interpreted in terms of the species' ecology, although convoluted paths are linked to higher significance of chemical signals. Beacon aiming was shown to be an innate behavior in visually naive Formica workers, which, however, were less strongly attracted to the beacon than older foragers. Thus, despite sharing the same habitats and supposedly having similar neural circuits, even a very simple stimulus-related behavior in the absence of other information can differ widely in ants but is likely an ancestral trait retained especially in species with smaller eyes. The comparative analysis of nervous systems opens the possibility of determining general features of circuits responsible for innate and possibly learned attraction toward particular stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yusuke Notomi
- Department of Applied Biological Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Noda-shi, Chiba 278-8510, Japan.,Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan
| | - Tomoki Kazawa
- Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan
| | - So Maezawa
- Department of Applied Biological Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Noda-shi, Chiba 278-8510, Japan
| | - Ryohei Kanzaki
- Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan
| | - Stephan Shuichi Haupt
- Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan,
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Devyaterikov А, Palyanov А. A software system for modeling evolution in a population of organisms with vision, interacting with each other in 3D simulator. Vavilovskii Zhurnal Genet Selektsii 2022; 26:780-786. [PMID: 36714032 PMCID: PMC9840910 DOI: 10.18699/vjgb-22-94] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2022] [Revised: 10/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/08/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Development of computer models imitating the work of the nervous systems of living organisms, taking into account their morphology and electrophysiology, is one of the important and promising branches of computational neurobiology. It is often sought to model not only the nervous system, but also the body, muscles, sensory systems, and a virtual three-dimensional physical environment in which the behavior of an organism can be observed and which provides its sensory systems with adequate data streams that change in response to the movement of the organism. For a system of hundreds or thousands of neurons, one can still hope to determine the necessary parameters and get the functioning of the nervous system more or less similar to that of a living organism - as, for example, in a recent work on the modeling of the Xenopus tadpole. However, of greatest interest, both practical and fundamental, are organisms that have vision, a more complex nervous system, and, accordingly, significantly more advanced cognitive abilities. Determining the structure and parameters of the nervous systems of such organisms is an extremely difficult task. Moreover, at the cellular level they change over time, these including changes under the influence of the streams of sensory signals they perceive and the life experience gained, including the consequences of their own actions under certain circumstances. Knowing the structure of the nervous system and the number of nerve cells forming it, at least approximately, one can try to optimize the initial parameters of the model through artificial evolution, during which virtual organisms will interact and survive, each under the control of its own version of the nervous system. In addition, in principle, the rules by which the brain changes during the life of the organism can also evolve. This work is devoted to the development of a neuroevolutionary simulator capable of performing simultaneous functioning of virtual organisms that have a visual system and are able to interact with each other. The amount of computational resources required for the operation of models of the physical body of an organism, the nervous system and the virtual environment was estimated, and the performance of the simulator on a modern desktop computing system was determined depending on the number of simultaneously simulated organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- А.P. Devyaterikov
- A.P. Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, RussiaNovosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia
| | - А.Yu. Palyanov
- A.P. Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
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Wystrach A. Movements, embodiment and the emergence of decisions. Insights from insect navigation. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2021; 564:70-77. [PMID: 34023071 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.04.114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/25/2020] [Revised: 04/06/2021] [Accepted: 04/27/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
We readily infer that animals make decisions, but what this implies is usually not clearly defined. The notion of 'decision-making' ultimately stems from human introspection, and is thus loaded with anthropomorphic assumptions. Notably, the decision is made internally, is based on information, and precedes the goal directed behaviour. Also, making a decision implies that 'something' did it, thus hints at the presence of a cognitive mind, whose existence is independent of the decision itself. This view may convey some truth, but here I take the opposite stance. Using examples from research in insect navigation, this essay highlights how apparent decisions can emerge without a brain, how actions can precede information or how sophisticated goal directed behaviours can be implemented without neural decisions. This perspective requires us to shake off the idea that behaviour is a consequence of the brain; and embrace the concept that movements arise from - as much as participate in - distributed interactions between various computational centres - including the body - that reverberate in closed-loop with the environment. From this perspective we may start to picture how a cognitive mind can be the consequence, rather than the cause, of such neural and body movements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Wystrach
- Research Centre on Animal Cognition, Centre for Integrative Biology, CNRS, University of Toulouse, 118 route deNarbonne, F-31062, Toulouse, France.
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5
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Spatial cognition in the context of foraging styles and information transfer in ants. Anim Cogn 2020; 23:1143-1159. [PMID: 32840698 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-020-01423-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2019] [Revised: 05/13/2020] [Accepted: 08/13/2020] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Ants are central-place foragers: they always return to the nest, and this requires the ability to remember relationships between features of the environment, or an individual's path through the landscape. The distribution of these cognitive responsibilities within a colony depends on a species' foraging style. Solitary foraging as well as leader-scouting, which is based on information transmission about a distant targets from scouts to foragers, can be considered the most challenging tasks in the context of ants' spatial cognition. Solitary foraging is found in species of almost all subfamilies of ants, whereas leader-scouting has been discovered as yet only in the Formica rufa group of species (red wood ants). Solitary foraging and leader-scouting ant species, although enormously different in their levels of sociality and ecological specificities, have many common traits of individual cognitive navigation, such as the primary use of visual navigation, excellent visual landmark memories, and the subordinate role of odour orientation. In leader-scouting species, spatial cognition and the ability to transfer information about a distant target dramatically differ among scouts and foragers, suggesting individual cognitive specialization. I suggest that the leader-scouting style of recruitment is closely connected with the ecological niche of a defined group of species, in particular, their searching patterns within the tree crown. There is much work to be done to understand what cognitive mechanisms underpin route planning and communication about locations in ants.
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Multimodal interactions in insect navigation. Anim Cogn 2020; 23:1129-1141. [PMID: 32323027 PMCID: PMC7700066 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-020-01383-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2019] [Revised: 04/02/2020] [Accepted: 04/06/2020] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
Animals travelling through the world receive input from multiple sensory modalities that could be important for the guidance of their journeys. Given the availability of a rich array of cues, from idiothetic information to input from sky compasses and visual information through to olfactory and other cues (e.g. gustatory, magnetic, anemotactic or thermal) it is no surprise to see multimodality in most aspects of navigation. In this review, we present the current knowledge of multimodal cue use during orientation and navigation in insects. Multimodal cue use is adapted to a species’ sensory ecology and shapes navigation behaviour both during the learning of environmental cues and when performing complex foraging journeys. The simultaneous use of multiple cues is beneficial because it provides redundant navigational information, and in general, multimodality increases robustness, accuracy and overall foraging success. We use examples from sensorimotor behaviours in mosquitoes and flies as well as from large scale navigation in ants, bees and insects that migrate seasonally over large distances, asking at each stage how multiple cues are combined behaviourally and what insects gain from using different modalities.
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Mandal S, Brahma A. Getting older, getting smarter: ontogeny of foraging behaviour in the tropical social wasp Ropalidia marginata. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2019; 222:jeb.199844. [PMID: 30936273 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.199844] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/16/2019] [Accepted: 03/26/2019] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Desert ants and honey bees start foraging when they are a few days old, and subsequently increase their foraging effort and the amount of foraged food. This could be an optimal strategy for scavenger/gatherer animals inhabiting landscapes with fewer features. However, animals inhabiting cluttered landscapes, especially predatory animals, may require substantial familiarity with foraging landscapes to forage efficiently. They may acquire such spatial familiarity with increasing age/experience, and eventually reduce their foraging effort without compromising on foraging success/efficiency. To check whether this holds for the individually foraging predatory tropical paper-wasp Ropalidia marginata, we recorded the number and duration of all foraging trips, the identity of foraged materials, and the directions of outbound and inbound flights (with respect to the nest) of known-age wasps for three consecutive days from three naturally occurring colonies; thus, we measured behavioural profiles of wasps of various ages, and not from the same wasp throughout its lifespan. Wasps increased their foraging duration rapidly until about 4 weeks of age, during which they rarely brought food, although some wasps brought building material and water. Thereafter, their foraging duration started decreasing. Nevertheless, their foraging success/efficiency in bringing food kept on increasing. With age, wasps developed individual directional preferences for outbound and inbound flights, indicating the development of spatial memory for rewarding sites. Also, the angular difference between their outbound and subsequent inbound flights gradually increased, indicating older wasps may have followed tortuous foraging routes. High investment in early life to acquire familiarity with foraging landscapes and using that later to perform efficient foraging could be an optimal strategy for individually foraging animals inhabiting feature-rich landscapes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Souvik Mandal
- Centre for Ecological Sciences, Division of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
| | - Anindita Brahma
- Centre for Ecological Sciences, Division of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
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Heyman Y, Vilk Y, Feinerman O. Ants Use Multiple Spatial Memories and Chemical Pointers to Navigate Their Nest. iScience 2019; 14:264-276. [PMID: 31005661 PMCID: PMC6476803 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.04.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2018] [Revised: 01/23/2019] [Accepted: 04/01/2019] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Animal navigation relies on the available environmental cues and, where present, visual cues typically dominate. While much is known about vision-assisted navigation, knowledge of navigation in the dark is scarce. Here, we combine individual tracking, dynamic modular nest structures, and spatially resolved chemical profiling to study how Camponotus fellah ants navigate within the dark labyrinth of their nest. We find that, contrary to ant navigation above ground, underground navigation cannot rely on long-range information. This limitation emphasizes the ants' capabilities associated with other navigational strategies. Indeed, apart from gravity, underground navigation relies on self-referenced memories of multiple locations and on socially generated chemical cues placed at decision points away from the target. Moreover, the ants quickly readjust the weights attributed to these information sources in response to environmental changes. Generally, studying well-known behaviors in a variety of environmental contexts holds the potential of revealing new insights into animal cognition. We combine multiple technologies to study how ants navigate within their dark nest Ants substitute visual cues with gravity, chemical cues, and multi-target memories Following a catastrophe, ants quickly readjust the relative importance of cues
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Affiliation(s)
- Yael Heyman
- Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
| | - Yael Vilk
- Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
| | - Ofer Feinerman
- Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
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Towne WF, Ritrovato AE, Esposto A, Brown DF. Honeybees use the skyline in orientation. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2017; 220:2476-2485. [PMID: 28450409 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.160002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2017] [Accepted: 04/23/2017] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
In view-based navigation, animals acquire views of the landscape from various locations and then compare the learned views with current views in order to orient in certain directions or move toward certain destinations. One landscape feature of great potential usefulness in view-based navigation is the skyline, the silhouette of terrestrial objects against the sky, as it is distant, relatively stable and easy to detect. The skyline has been shown to be important in the view-based navigation of ants, but no flying insect has yet been shown definitively to use the skyline in this way. Here, we show that honeybees do indeed orient using the skyline. A feeder was surrounded with an artificial replica of the natural skyline there, and the bees' departures toward the nest were recorded from above with a video camera under overcast skies (to eliminate celestial cues). When the artificial skyline was rotated, the bees' departures were rotated correspondingly, showing that the bees oriented by the artificial skyline alone. We discuss these findings in the context of the likely importance of the skyline in long-range homing in bees, the likely importance of altitude in using the skyline, the likely role of ultraviolet light in detecting the skyline, and what we know about the bees' ability to resolve skyline features.
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Affiliation(s)
- William F Towne
- Department of Biology, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA 19529, USA
| | | | - Antonina Esposto
- Department of Biology, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA 19529, USA
| | - Duncan F Brown
- Department of Biology, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA 19529, USA
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Xie XF, Wang ZJ. Cooperative group optimization with ants (CGO-AS): Leverage optimization with mixed individual and social learning. Appl Soft Comput 2017. [DOI: 10.1016/j.asoc.2016.11.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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Beugnon G, Macquart D. Sequential learning of relative size by the Neotropical ant Gigantiops destructor. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2016; 202:287-96. [PMID: 26879665 DOI: 10.1007/s00359-016-1075-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2015] [Revised: 02/03/2016] [Accepted: 02/04/2016] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The question of whether insects can perform concept learning or can use the geometry of space as in mammals has been recently addressed in Hymenoptera in an extensive way. We investigate here the ability of the tropical ant Gigantiops destructor to perform sequential learning and to use size relationships during navigation. Ants were trained to solve a dichotomic six-stage linear maze relying on the apparent width of two vertical landmarks. Each individual ant first learnt to associate a given landmark width to the motor decision of turning right or left to avoid dead-ends independently of a motor routine. When confronted for the first time with a new intermediate-sized pattern, for which no supposed snapshot could have been stored, ants made directional choices indicating that bar width judgments were not absolute but rather relative to the familiar visual patterns seen in the previous chambers. This result demonstrates that ants can generalize relationship rules by interpolating the relative width of a novel stimulus according to visual information kept in spatial working memory. In conclusion, ants can perform conditional discriminations reliably not only when stimuli are simultaneous but also when they are sequential.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guy Beugnon
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France.
| | - David Macquart
- Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Centre de Biologie Intégrative (CBI), Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Toulouse, France
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Knaden M, Graham P. The Sensory Ecology of Ant Navigation: From Natural Environments to Neural Mechanisms. ANNUAL REVIEW OF ENTOMOLOGY 2016; 61:63-76. [PMID: 26527301 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ento-010715-023703] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
Animals moving through the world are surrounded by potential information. But the components of this rich array that they extract will depend on current behavioral requirements and the animal's own sensory apparatus. Here, we consider the types of information available to social hymenopteran insects, with a specific focus on ants. This topic has a long history and much is known about how ants and other insects use idiothetic information, sky compasses, visual cues, and odor trails. Recent research has highlighted how insects use other sensory information for navigation, such as the olfactory cues provided by the environment. These cues are harder to understand because they submit less easily to anthropomorphic analysis. Here, we take an ecological approach, considering first what information is available to insects, then how different cues might interact, and finally we discuss potential neural correlates of these behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Markus Knaden
- Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, 07745 Jena, Germany;
| | - Paul Graham
- Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RH, United Kingdom;
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Cheng K, Schultheiss P, Schwarz S, Wystrach A, Wehner R. Beginnings of a synthetic approach to desert ant navigation. Behav Processes 2013; 102:51-61. [PMID: 24129029 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2013.10.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2013] [Revised: 09/27/2013] [Accepted: 10/05/2013] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
In a synthetic approach to studying navigational abilities in desert ants, we review recent work comparing ants living in different visual ecologies. Those living in a visually rich habitat strewn with tussocks, bushes, and trees are compared to those living in visually barren salt pans, as exemplified by the Central Australian Melophorus bagoti and the North African Cataglyphis fortis, respectively. In bare habitats the navigator must rely primarily on path integration, keeping track of the distance and direction in which it has travelled, while in visually rich habitats the navigator can rely more on guidance by the visual panorama. Consistent with these expectations, C. fortis performs better than M. bagoti on various measures of precision at path integration. In contrast, M. bagoti learned a visually based associative task better than C. fortis, the latter generally failing at the task. Both these ants, however, exhibit a similar pattern of systematic search as a 'back up' strategy when other navigational strategies fail. A newly investigated salt-pan species of Melophorus (as yet unnamed) resembles C. fortis more, and its congener M. bagoti less, in its path integration. The synthetic approach would benefit from comparing more species chosen to address evolutionary questions. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: CO3 2013.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ken Cheng
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Australia.
| | | | - Sebastian Schwarz
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Canada
| | | | - Rüdiger Wehner
- Brain Research Institute, University of Zürich, Switzerland
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15
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Mangan M, Webb B. Spontaneous formation of multiple routes in individual desert ants (Cataglyphis velox). Behav Ecol 2012. [DOI: 10.1093/beheco/ars051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 91] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
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Bühlmann C, Cheng K, Wehner R. Vector-based and landmark-guided navigation in desert ants inhabiting landmark-free and landmark-rich environments. J Exp Biol 2011; 214:2845-53. [DOI: 10.1242/jeb.054601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
SUMMARY
Two species of desert ants – the North African Cataglyphis fortis and the central Australian Melophorus bagoti – differ markedly in the visual complexity of their natural habitats: featureless salt pans and cluttered, steppe-like terrain, respectively. Here we ask whether the two species differ in their navigational repertoires, in particular, whether in homing they place different emphasis on their vector-based and landmark-based routines. In trying to answer this question, we applied the same experimental paradigms to individual foragers of either species on either continent: training and/or testing with and/or without artificial landmark arrays. We found that the open-terrain species C. fortis runs off its (path integration) home vector much more readily even in unfamiliar landmark settings than the cluttered-terrain species M. bagoti. These data support the hypothesis that C. fortis has a higher propensity to rely on vector-mediated navigation, whereas in the same experimental situations M. bagoti more easily switches to landmark-guided behaviour. In the actual navigational performances, such species-specific propensities are most likely shaped by environment-dependent individual experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cornelia Bühlmann
- Brain Research Institute, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Ken Cheng
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
| | - Rüdiger Wehner
- Brain Research Institute, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057, Zürich, Switzerland
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Wystrach A, Beugnon G, Cheng K. Landmarks or panoramas: what do navigating ants attend to for guidance? Front Zool 2011; 8:21. [PMID: 21871114 PMCID: PMC3177867 DOI: 10.1186/1742-9994-8-21] [Citation(s) in RCA: 91] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2011] [Accepted: 08/27/2011] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Insects are known to rely on terrestrial landmarks for navigation. Landmarks are used to chart a route or pinpoint a goal. The distant panorama, however, is often thought not to guide navigation directly during a familiar journey, but to act as a contextual cue that primes the correct memory of the landmarks. RESULTS We provided Melophorus bagoti ants with a huge artificial landmark located right near the nest entrance to find out whether navigating ants focus on such a prominent visual landmark for homing guidance. When the landmark was displaced by small or large distances, ant routes were affected differently. Certain behaviours appeared inconsistent with the hypothesis that guidance was based on the landmark only. Instead, comparisons of panoramic images recorded on the field, encompassing both landmark and distal panorama, could explain most aspects of the ant behaviours. CONCLUSION Ants navigating along a familiar route do not focus on obvious landmarks or filter out distal panoramic cues, but appear to be guided by cues covering a large area of their panoramic visual field, including both landmarks and distal panorama. Using panoramic views seems an appropriate strategy to cope with the complexity of natural scenes and the poor resolution of insects' eyes. The ability to isolate landmarks from the rest of a scene may be beyond the capacity of animals that do not possess a dedicated object-perception visual stream like primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Wystrach
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109 Australia.
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Abstract
Summary
Animals have needed to find their way about almost since a free-living life style evolved. Particularly, if an animal has a home – shelter or nesting site – true navigation becomes necessary to shuttle between this home and areas of other activities, such as feeding. As old as navigation is in the animal kingdom, as diverse are its mechanisms and implementations, depending on an organism's ecology and its endowment with sensors and actuators. The use of landmarks for piloting or the use of trail pheromones for route following have been examined in great detail and in a variety of animal species. The same is true for senses of direction – the compasses for navigation – and the construction of vectors for navigation from compass and distance cues. The measurement of distance itself – odometry – has received much less attention. The present review addresses some recent progress in the understanding of odometers in invertebrates, after outlining general principles of navigation to put odometry in its proper context. Finally, a number of refinements that increase navigation accuracy and safety are addressed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Harald Wolf
- Institute for Advanced Study Berlin, Wallotstr. 19, D-14193 Berlin, Germany
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Schwarz S, Narendra A, Zeil J. The properties of the visual system in the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti. ARTHROPOD STRUCTURE & DEVELOPMENT 2011; 40:128-134. [PMID: 21044895 DOI: 10.1016/j.asd.2010.10.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2010] [Revised: 10/19/2010] [Accepted: 10/20/2010] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
The Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti shows remarkable visual navigational skills relying on visual rather than on chemical cues during their foraging trips. M. bagoti ants travel individually through a visually cluttered environment guided by landmarks as well as by path integration. An examination of their visual system is hence of special interest and we address this here. Workers exhibit distinct size polymorphism and their eye and ocelli size increases with head size. The ants possess typical apposition eyes with about 420-590 ommatidia per eye, a horizontal visual field of approximately 150° and facet lens diameters between 8 and 19 μm, depending on body size, with frontal facets being largest. The average interommatidial angle Δϕ is 3.7°, the average acceptance angle of the rhabdom Δρ(rh) is 2.9°, with average rhabdom diameter of 1.6 μm and the average lens blur at half-width Δρ(l) is 2.3°. With a Δρ(rh)/Δϕ ratio of much less than 2, the eyes undersample the visual scene but provide high contrast, and surprising detail of the landmark panorama that has been shown to be used for navigation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schwarz
- Department of Brain, Behaviour and Evolution, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
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Views, landmarks, and routes: how do desert ants negotiate an obstacle course? J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2010; 197:167-79. [DOI: 10.1007/s00359-010-0597-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 80] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2010] [Revised: 10/05/2010] [Accepted: 10/08/2010] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Not using the obvious: desert ants, Melophorus bagoti, learn local vectors but not beacons in an arena. Anim Cogn 2010; 13:849-60. [DOI: 10.1007/s10071-010-0333-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2010] [Revised: 05/27/2010] [Accepted: 06/08/2010] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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Graham P, Cheng K. Which portion of the natural panorama is used for view-based navigation in the Australian desert ant? J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2009; 195:681-9. [DOI: 10.1007/s00359-009-0443-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2009] [Revised: 04/08/2009] [Accepted: 04/13/2009] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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Lent DD, Graham P, Collett TS. A Motor Component to the Memories of Habitual Foraging Routes in Wood Ants? Curr Biol 2009; 19:115-21. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.11.060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2008] [Revised: 10/28/2008] [Accepted: 11/18/2008] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Wystrach A, Beugnon G. Ants Learn Geometry and Features. Curr Biol 2009; 19:61-6. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.11.054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2008] [Revised: 11/21/2008] [Accepted: 11/21/2008] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Wystrach
- Université de Toulouse, CNRS - UPS (UMR 5161), Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, F-31062 Toulouse cedex 9, France.
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