University of Sussex
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Longevity and detection of persistent foraging trails in Pharaoh's ants Monomorium Pharaonis (L.)

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 07:06 authored by Duncan E Jackson, Stephen J Martin, Mike Holcombe, Francis Ratnieks
Pheromone trails provide a positive feedback mechanism for many animal species, and facilitate the sharing of information about food, nest or mate location. How long pheromone trails persist determines how long these environmental memories are accessible to conspecifics. We determined the time frame over which Pharaoh's ant colonies can re-establish a long-lived trail and how the behaviour of individual workers contributes to trail re-establishment. We used artificially constrained pheromone trails on paper to investigate trail longevity and individual responses. Trails formed by traffic of 1000¿2000 ant passages could be re-established after 24 h, and after 48 h for 4000¿8000 ant passages. Only 27.5% of individual foragers were highly successful in a bioassay testing the ability to detect trails established 24 h earlier. Trail-finding ability was significantly correlated with a low antennal position. Long-lived trail detection scores increased significantly in 57% of foragers after 5 h of food deprivation and isolation, but declined again after feeding. In a control study, only 9% of foragers changed their scores, when isolated with food present. A high degree of conservatism was found such that, regardless of treatment, 21% always failed the bioassay and 17% always succeeded. Our demonstration of long-lived components in Pharaoh's ant trails and of a behavioural specialization in `pathfinding¿ shows that pheromone trails are more complex at the individual level than is generally recognized.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Animal Behaviour

ISSN

0003-3472

Issue

2

Volume

71

Page range

351-359

Pages

9.0

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC