» Articles » PMID: 32078060

Pheromone Cue Triggers Switch Between Vectors in the Desert Harvest Ant, Veromessor Pergandei

Overview
Journal Anim Cogn
Publisher Springer
Date 2020 Feb 21
PMID 32078060
Citations 3
Authors
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

The desert harvester ant (Veromessor pergandei) employs a mixture of social and individual navigational strategies at separate stages of their foraging trip. Individuals leave the nest along a pheromone-based column, travelling 3-40 m before spreading out to forage individually in a fan. Foragers use path integration while in this fan, accumulating a direction and distance estimate (vector) to return to the end of the column (column head), yet foragers' potential use of path integration in the pheromone-based column is less understood. Here we show foragers rely on path integration both in the foraging fan and while in the column to return to the nest, using separate vectors depending on their current foraging stage in the fan or column. Returning foragers displaced while in the fan oriented and travelled to the column head location while those displaced after reaching the column travel in the nest direction, signifying the maintenance of a two-vector system with separate fan and column vectors directing a forager to two separate spatial locations. Interestingly, the trail pheromone and not the surrounding terrestrial cues mediate use of these distinct vectors, as fan foragers briefly exposed to the pheromone cues of the column in isolation altered their paths to a combination of the fan and column vectors. The pheromone acts as a contextual cue triggering both the retrieval of the column-vector memory and its integration with the forager's current fan-vector.

Citing Articles

Route retracing: way pointing and multiple vector memories in trail-following ants.

Freas C, Spetch M J Exp Biol. 2023; 227(2).

PMID: 38126715 PMC: 10906666. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.246695.


Directed retreat and navigational mechanisms in trail following Formica obscuripes.

Freas C, Spetch M Learn Behav. 2023; 52(1):114-131.

PMID: 37752304 PMC: 10923983. DOI: 10.3758/s13420-023-00604-1.


Color, activity period, and eye structure in four lineages of ants: Pale, nocturnal species have evolved larger eyes and larger facets than their dark, diurnal congeners.

Johnson R, Rutowski R PLoS One. 2022; 17(9):e0257779.

PMID: 36137088 PMC: 9499225. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257779.

References
1.
Bisch-Knaden S, Wehner R . Egocentric information helps desert ants to navigate around familiar obstacles. J Exp Biol. 2002; 204(Pt 24):4177-84. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.204.24.4177. View

2.
Bregy P, Sommer S, Wehner R . Nest-mark orientation versus vector navigation in desert ants. J Exp Biol. 2008; 211(Pt 12):1868-73. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.018036. View

3.
Buehlmann C, Hansson B, Knaden M . Path integration controls nest-plume following in desert ants. Curr Biol. 2012; 22(7):645-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.02.029. View

4.
Collett M . How navigational guidance systems are combined in a desert ant. Curr Biol. 2012; 22(10):927-32. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.049. View

5.
Collett T . Do frogs use retinal elevation to measure the distance of a barrier?. J Comp Physiol A. 1993; 172(1):109-13. DOI: 10.1007/BF00214720. View