Acute exposure to caffeine improves foraging in an invasive ant.

ABSTRACT: Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, are a particularly concerning invasive species. Control efforts often fall short likely due to a lack of sustained bait consumption. Using neuroactives, such as caffeine, to improve ant learning and navigation could increase recruitment and consumption of toxic baits. Here, we exposed L. humile to a range of caffeine concentrations and a complex ecologically relevant task: an open landscape foraging experiment. Without caffeine, we found no effect of consecutive foraging visits on the time the ants take to reach a reward, suggesting a failure to learn the reward's location. However, under low to intermediate caffeine concentrations ants were 38% faster with each consecutive visit, implying that caffeine boosts learning. Interestingly, such

SUBMITTER: Galante H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11270030 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature