Learning of colonial odor in the ant<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cataglyphis niger</Emphasis> (Hymenoptera; Formicidae) |
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| Authors: | Elise Nowbahari |
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| Institution: | Laboratoire d'Ethologie Expérimentale et Comparée, UMR CNRS 7153, Université Paris Nord, Villetaneuse, France. elise.nowbahari@leec.univ-paris13.fr |
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| Abstract: | Ants learn the odors of members of their colony early in postnatal life, but their ability to learn to recognize noncolony
conspecifics and heterospecifics has never been explored. We used a habituation—discrimination paradigm to assess individual
recognition in adult Formicine ants,Cataglyphis niger. Pairs of workers from different colonies were placed together for repeated trials, and their ability to discriminate the
ant that they encountered from another familiar or unfamiliar ant was observed. Some ants were isolated between encounters,
and others were returned to their home colonies. Our results suggest for the first time in ants that C. niger adults learn
about individual ants that they have encountered and recognize them in subsequent encounters. Ants are less aggressive toward
non-nestmates after they are familiar with one another, but they are aggressive again when they encounter an unfamiliar individual.
Learning about non-nestmates does not interfere with an ant’s memory of members from its own colony. |
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