Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T23:53:35.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ants’ learning of nest entrance characteristics (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2013

M.-C. Cammaerts
M.-C. Cammaerts*
Affiliation:
Faculté des Sciences, DBO, CP 160/12, Université libre de Bruxelles, 50, A. F. Roosevelt, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
*
Author for correspondence Phone: +02 673 49 69 Fax: +32 2 650 24 45 E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Young workers, experimentally removed from their nest and set in front of it, are not very good at finding the nest entrance and entering the nest. I examined how young ants learn their nest entrance characteristics, dealing only with the entrance sensu stricto, not with its vicinity. I observed that young ants have the innate behavior of trying to exit and re-enter their nest. I found that they are imprinted with the nest entrance odor while they are still living inside their nest and that they learn the visual aspect of their nest entrances, thanks to operant conditioning, when they exit their nest and succeed in re-entering in the course of their first short trips outside.

Keywords

imprintingMyrmica rubraontogenesisoperant conditioning
Type
Research Paper
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 104 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 29 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bos, N. & D'Ettorre, P. (2012) Recognition of social identity in ants. Psychology 3, 83.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (1977) Etude démograpique annuelle des sociétés de Myrmica rubra L. des environs de Bruxelles. Insectes Sociaux 24, 147–161.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2004) Some characteristics of the visual perception of the ant Myrmica sabuleti . Physiological Entomology 29, 472–482.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2007 a) Perspective vision in workers of Myrmica sabuleti Meinert, 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecological News 10, 21–26.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2007 b) Colour vision in the ant Myrmica sabuleti Meinert, 1861 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecological News 10, 41–50.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2011) Visual vertical subtended angle of Myrmica ruginodis and Myrmica rubra (Formicidae, Hymenoptera). Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge d'Entomologie 147, 113–120.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2012 a) Navigation system of the ant Myrmica rubra (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Myrmecological News 16, 111–121.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2012 b) Olfactory and visual operant conditioning in the ant Myrmica rubra (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge d'Entomologie 148, 199–208.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2013 a) Myrmica rubra workers’ visual perception (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Belgian Journal of Zoology, in press.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. (2013 b) Age dependent spatio-temporal learning in the ant Myrmica sabuleti (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge d'Entomologie, in press.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, R. & Cammaerts, M.-C. (1987) Nest topology, nestmate recognition, territorial marking and homing in the ant Manica rubida (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) . Biology of Behaviour 12, 65–81.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. & Cammaerts, R. (1999) Marking of nest entrances and vicinity in the ant Myrmica rubra . Biologia 50, 553–566.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. & Cammaerts, R. (2000) Nest odour in the ant Myrmica rubra (Myrmicinae) . Biologia 55, 509–523.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C. & Rachidi, Z. (2009) Olfactive conditioning and use of visual and odorous elements for movement in the ant Myrmica sabuleti (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Myrmecological news 12, 117–127.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C., Morel, F., Martino, F. & Warzée, N. (2012 a) An easy and cheap software-based method to assess two-dimensional trajectories parameters. Belgian Journal of Zoology 142, 145–151.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, M.-C., Rachidi, Z., Beke, S. & Essaadi, Y. (2012 b) Use of olfactory and visual cues for traveling by the ant Myrmica ruginodis (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). Myrmecological News 16, 45–55.Google Scholar
Fielde, A.M. (1903) Artificial mixed nests of ants. Biological Bulletin 5, 320–325.Google Scholar
Giurfa, M. (2007) Behavioral and neural analysis of associative learning in the honeybee: a taste from the magic well. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 193, 801–824.Google Scholar
Graham, P., Philippides, A. & Baddeley, B. (2010) Animal cognition: multi-modal interactions in ant learning. Current Biology 20, R639–R640.Google Scholar
Guerrieri, F.J., D'Ettorre, P., Devaud, J.-M. & Giurfa, M. (2011) Long-term olfactory memories are stabilized via protein synthesis in Camponotus fellah ants. Journal of Experimental Biology 214, 3,300–3,304.Google Scholar
Jaisson, P. (1991) Kinship and fellowship in ants and social wasps. pp. 60–93 in Hepper, P.G. (ed.) Kin Recognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margulies, C., Tully, T. & Dubnau, J. (2005) Deconstructing memory in Drosophila . Current Biology 15, R700–R712.Google Scholar
Merkle, T. & Wehner, R. (2010) Desert ants use foraging distance to adapt the nest search to the uncertainty of the path integrator. Behavioral Ecology 21, 349–355.Google Scholar
Müller, M. & Wehner, R. (2010) Path integration provides a scaffold for landmark learning in desert ants. Current Biology 20, 1368–1371.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Narendra, A. (2007 a) Homing strategies of the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti I. Proportional path-integration takes the ant half-way home. Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 1798–1803.Google Scholar
Narendra, A. (2007 b) Homing strategies of the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti II. Interaction of the path integrator with visual cue information. Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 1804–1812.Google Scholar
Plateaux, L. (1960) Adoptions expérimentales de larves entre des fourmis de genres différents : Leptothorax nylanderi Förter et Solenopsis fugax latreille. Insectes Sociaux 7, 163–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachidi, Z., Cammaerts, M.-C. & Debeir, O. (2008) Morphometric study of the eye of three species of Myrmica (Formicidae). Belgian Journal of Entomology 10, 81–91.Google Scholar
Schultheiss, P. & Cheng, K. (2011) Finding the nest: inbound searching behaviour in the Australian desert ant, Melophorus bagoti . Animal Behaviour 81, 1031–1038. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.02.008.Google Scholar
Schultheiss, P., Wystrach, A., Legge, E.L.G. & Cheng, K. (2013) Information content of visual scenes influences systematic search of desert ants. Journal of Experimental Biology 216, 742–749.Google ScholarPubMed
Siegel, S. & Castellan, N.J. (1989). Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences. pp. 396. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Singapore.Google Scholar
Steck, K., Hansson, B. S. & Knaden, M. (2009) Smells like home: desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, use olfactory landmarks to pinpoint the nest. Frontiers in Zoology 6, 5. doi: 10.1186/1742-9994-6-5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stroeymeyt, N., Guerrieri, F.J., van Zweden, J.S. & D'Ettorre, P. (2010) Rapid decision-marking with side-specific perceptual discrimination in ants. PLoS ONE 5, 8. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012377.Google Scholar
Wehner, R. & Müller, M. (2010). Piloting in desert ants: pinpointing the goal by discrete landmarks. Journal of Experimental Biology 213, 4174–4179. doi: 10.1242/jeb.050674.Google Scholar