Spontaneous formation of multiple routes in individual desert ants (Cataglyphis velox)

Mangan, Michael; Webb, Barbara

doi:10.1093/beheco/ars051

Cited by 124 publications

(140 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Ants in landmark-rich habitats however, including the two species studied here, are guided by the visual panorama, often in preference to path integration information (e.g. [23,25,51,52]). In such cases, spectral information may improve the reliability of navigational cues.…”

Section: (B) Are Australian Ants Special?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Three spectrally distinct photoreceptors in diurnal and nocturnal Australian ants

et al. 2015

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Ants are thought to be special among Hymenopterans in having only dichromatic colour vision based on two spectrally distinct photoreceptors. Many ants are highly visual animals, however, and use vision extensively for navigation. We show here that two congeneric day-and night-active Australian ants have three spectrally distinct photoreceptor types, potentially supporting trichromatic colour vision. Electroretinogram recordings show the presence of three spectral sensitivities with peaks (l max ) at 370, 450 and 550 nm in the night-active Myrmecia vindex and peaks at 370, 470 and 510 nm in the day-active Myrmecia croslandi. Intracellular electrophysiology on individual photoreceptors confirmed that the night-active M. vindex has three spectral sensitivities with peaks (l max ) at 370, 430 and 550 nm. A large number of the intracellular recordings in the night-active M. vindex show unusually broad-band spectral sensitivities, suggesting that photoreceptors may be coupled. Spectral measurements at different temporal frequencies revealed that the ultraviolet receptors are comparatively slow. We discuss the adaptive significance and the probability of trichromacy in Myrmecia ants in the context of dim light vision and visual navigation.

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Section: (B) Are Australian Ants Special?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Three spectrally distinct photoreceptors in diurnal and nocturnal Australian ants

et al. 2015

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“…This ability also requires elaborate innate computational mechanisms, but has the extra complication of extracting, storing and then using the specific visual information that is needed to follow a habitual route. Ants are turning out to be particularly informative, because the precision and stereotypy of their routes [17][18][19][20] make it possible to analyse the underlying strategies and mechanisms [21,22]. Ants are also interesting because of the multiple sensory cues that contribute to their navigation, particularly olfaction, with long range cues from wind-borne volatiles [23][24][25] and short-range cues from pheromone trails on the ground [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scene perception and the visual control of travel direction in navigating wood ants

Collett

Lent

Graham

2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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This review reflects a few of Mike Land's many and varied contributions to visual science. In it, we show for wood ants, as Mike has done for a variety of animals, including readers of this piece, what can be learnt from a detailed analysis of an animal's visually guided eye, head or body movements. In the case of wood ants, close examination of their body movements, as they follow visually guided routes, is starting to reveal how they perceive and respond to their visual world and negotiate a path within it. We describe first some of the mechanisms that underlie the visual control of their paths, emphasizing that vision is not the ant's only sense. In the second part, we discuss how remembered local shape-dependent and global shape-independent features of a visual scene may interact in guiding the ant's path.

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“…A route guidance system, based in this way on guidance elements that are panorama-specific and that have local integrators to provided stop signals, could operate robustly in both cluttered and open environments. Uninterrupted route following, for instance in earlier studies [17][18][19] and in the non-recapitulation trajectories here, can be explained if a guidance element is disengaged only after the subsequent guidance element has already been activated. The confusion observed in the recapitulation trajectories could arise if the repetition memory in some way reduces or eliminates the normal period of overlap.…”

Section: (A) Route Memories As a Collection Of Guidance Elementsmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…The model presented below may help explain why the landscape structure in this study might produce the patterns of confusion observed here, and why such confusion might not be observed in more cluttered environments [17][18][19].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

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A desert ant's memory of recent visual experience and the control of route guidance

Collett

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Insects such as desert ants learn stereotyped visual routes between their nests and reliable food sites. Studies here reveal an important control element for ensuring that the route memories are used appropriately. They find that visual route memories can be disengaged, so that they do not provide guidance, even when all appropriate visual cues are present and when there are no competing guidance cues. Ants were trained along a simple route dominated by a single isolated landmark. If returning ants were caught just before entering the nest and replaced at the feeder, then they often interrupted the recapitulation of their homeward route with a period of apparent confusion during which the route memories were ignored. A series of experiments showed that this confusion occurred in response to the repetition of the route, and that the ants must therefore maintain some kind of a memory of their visual experience on the current trip home. A conceptual model of route guidance is offered to explain the results here. It proposes how the memory might act and suggests a general role for disengagement in regulating route guidance.

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Spontaneous formation of multiple routes in individual desert ants (Cataglyphis velox)

Cited by 124 publications

References 37 publications

Three spectrally distinct photoreceptors in diurnal and nocturnal Australian ants

Three spectrally distinct photoreceptors in diurnal and nocturnal Australian ants

Scene perception and the visual control of travel direction in navigating wood ants

A desert ant's memory of recent visual experience and the control of route guidance

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