Role of the pheromone for navigation in the group foraging ant, Veromessor pergandei

Freas, Cody A.

doi:10.1007/s00359-021-01471-9

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Across a number of ant species which search for food alone, either during all or part of their foraging journey, visual cues support the main navigational strategies of these ants (Cheng et al 2009 ; Wehner 2020 ). Additionally, even species which forage on pheromone trails often rely on visual cues to resolve the directional ambiguity of the pheromone (Freas et al 2019b ; Freas and Spetch 2021 ).…”

Section: Homingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of visual navigation in insects

Freas

2022

Anim Cogn

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The behaviours and cognitive mechanisms animals use to orient, navigate, and remember spatial locations exemplify how cognitive abilities have evolved to suit a number of different mobile lifestyles and habitats. While spatial cognition observed in vertebrates has been well characterised in recent decades, of no less interest are the great strides that have also been made in characterizing and understanding the behavioural and cognitive basis of orientation and navigation in invertebrate models and in particular insects. Insects are known to exhibit remarkable spatial cognitive abilities and are able to successfully migrate over long distances or pinpoint known locations relying on multiple navigational strategies similar to those found in vertebrate models—all while operating under the constraint of relatively limited neural architectures. Insect orientation and navigation systems are often tailored to each species’ ecology, yet common mechanistic principles can be observed repeatedly. Of these, reliance on visual cues is observed across a wide number of insect groups. In this review, we characterise some of the behavioural strategies used by insects to solve navigational problems, including orientation over short-distances, migratory heading maintenance over long distances, and homing behaviours to known locations. We describe behavioural research using examples from a few well-studied insect species to illustrate how visual cues are used in navigation and how they interact with non-visual cues and strategies.

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Section: Homingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of visual navigation in insects

Freas

2022

Anim Cogn

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“…While running off a vector segment, the forager is likely also continuously attending the pheromone’s presence along its chosen route. Prolonged periods of pheromone absence likely increase uncertainty and early abandonment of the current heading, just as we see in foragers from straight columns abandoning their global vector early (Freas et al 2020; Freas and Spetch 2021). Therefore, despite the vector segment switch being triggered by the forager’s PI, the pheromone’s presence/absence still influences how far foragers attend to each segment, likely as a strategic decision to prevent overshooting column shifts along the homeward route.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…In contrast, foragers observed reorienting on the column, were highly accurate at re-orienting at the 1 st Elbow. This suggests that foragers tested while in contact with the pheromone (acting as a reassurance cue: Wetterer et al 1992; Czaczkes et al 2011; Freas and Spetch 2021) would continue to run off its vector segment to completion before re-orienting. While running off a vector segment, the forager is likely also continuously attending the pheromone’s presence along its chosen route.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Throughout this journey, both in the column and fan, foragers rely on an accumulating PI-derived vector to navigate and do not engage in view alignment (Freas et al 2019ab;Freas and Spetch 2021). After collecting food, individuals navigate via only a portion of their global vector to first reach the pheromone column before reorienting toward the nest (Freas et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…V. pergandei individuals initially leave the nest navigating socially along a pheromone column (up to 40m) before the pheromone ends (column head) and foragers fan out alone, off the pheromone, to collect food (Plowes et al 2013, 2014). Throughout this journey, both in the column and fan, foragers rely on an accumulating PI-derived vector to navigate and do not engage in view alignment (Freas et al 2019ab; Freas and Spetch 2021). After collecting food, individuals navigate via only a portion of their global vector to first reach the pheromone column before reorienting toward the nest (Freas et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Route Retracing: Way-pointing in Trail Following Ants

Freas,

Spetch

2023

Preprint

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Maintaining positional estimates of goal locations is a fundamental task for navigating animals. Diverse animal groups, including both vertebrates and invertebrates, can accomplish this through path integration (PI). During PI, navigators integrate movement changes, tracking both distance and direction, to generate a spatial estimate of their start location, or global vector, allowing efficient direct return travel without retracing the outbound route. In ants, PI is accomplished through the coupling of pedometer and celestial compass estimates. Within the PI system, it has been theorized navigators may segment the global vector into local-vectors for way-pointing. However, this is controversial, as these navigators may instead be homing via the view alignment. Here, we present evidence trail-following ants can attend to segments of their global vector to retrace their non-straight pheromone trails, without the confound of familiar views.Veromessor pergandeiforagers navigate via directionally distinct segments of their PI by orienting along separate legs of their inbound route at unfamiliar locations, indicating these changes are not triggered by familiar external cues, but by the PI state. These findings contrast with the view of path integration as a singular memory estimate and underscore the system’s ability to way-point to intermediate goals along the inbound route. We discuss how the foraging ecology of ant species that rely on non-straight pheromone-marked trails may support attending vector segments to remain on the pheromone rather than attempting straight-line shortcuts back to the nest.

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Scanning behaviour in ants: an interplay between random-rate processes and oscillators

et al. 2023

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At the start of a journey home or to a foraging site, ants often stop, interrupting their forward movement, turn on the spot a number of times, and fixate in different directions. These scanning bouts are thought to provide visual information for choosing a path to travel. The temporal organization of such scanning bouts has implications about the neural organisation of navigational behaviour. We examined (1) the temporal distribution of the start of such scanning bouts and (2) the dynamics of saccadic body turns and fixations that compose a scanning bout in Australian desert ants, Melophorus bagoti, as they came out of a walled channel onto open field at the start of their homeward journey. Ants were caught when they neared their nest and displaced to different locations to start their journey home again. The observed parameters were mostly similar across familiar and unfamiliar locations. The turning angles of saccadic body turning to the right or left showed some stereotypy, with a peak just under 45°. The direction of such saccades appears to be determined by a slow oscillatory process as described in other insect species. In timing, however, both the distribution of inter-scanning-bout intervals and individual fixation durations showed exponential characteristics, the signature for a random-rate or Poisson process. Neurobiologically, therefore, there must be some process that switches behaviour (starting a scanning bout or ending a fixation) with equal probability at every moment in time. We discuss how chance events in the ant brain that occasionally reach a threshold for triggering such behaviours can generate the results.

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Role of the pheromone for navigation in the group foraging ant, Veromessor pergandei

Cited by 7 publications

References 33 publications

Varieties of visual navigation in insects

Varieties of visual navigation in insects

Route Retracing: Way-pointing in Trail Following Ants

Scanning behaviour in ants: an interplay between random-rate processes and oscillators

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