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Do familiar landmarks reset the global path integration system of desert ants?

M. Collett¹, T. S. Collett^2,*, S. Chameron³ and R. Wehner⁴

¹ Department of Zoology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
² School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
³ Laboratoire Ethologie Expérimentale et Comparée, CNRS — FRE 2413, Université Paris Nord, 99, avenue Jean-Baptiste Clément, 93430 Villetaneuse, France
⁴ Department of Zoology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland

View larger version (20K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Experimental design. Left: Ants were trained to a feeding site in channels along one of two L-shaped routes (A or B) with conspicuous landmarks attached to the channels (positions marked by filled circles). Centre and right: The home vectors of experienced ants are tested after a single foodward trip in which the first part of the route was shortened (A) or lengthened (B). Dashed lines indicate that ants were carried from the feeder to the test field. The `no resetting' arrows show the expected home vectors were the ants' paths to reflect the immediately preceding trip. The `resetting' arrows show the expected home vectors were the ants' paths to reflect the training parameters, indicating the recall of a cumulative global PI memory established in previous trips.

View larger version (73K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Home vectors of ants taken from the feeder at the end of a trained or an altered route. The left column shows a sketch of the route, incorporating the short additional distance that the ants cover when going from the nest to the start of the channel and from the end of the channel to the feeder. The solid square shows the nest position for the trained route, and the open square shows the nest position for the altered route. The superimposed arrows show the mean home vectors of tested ants — solid arrows for the trained or retrained conditions, and open arrows for the altered routes. In the columns to the right, superimposed individually recorded home vectors are plotted from the ants' release until the start of search behaviour. The position of the nest relative to the feeder (i.e. the position of the fictive nest relative to the release site) is shown by a circle. A filled circle indicates the position for the training route, and an open circle indicates the position for an altered route. Top row, route A; middle row, route B; bottom row, route C.