Innate visual attraction in wood ants is a hardwired behavior seen across different motivational and ecological contexts.

ABSTRACT: Ants are expert navigators combining innate and learnt navigational strategies. Whereas we know that the ants' feeding state segregates visual-navigational memories in ants navigating along a learnt route, it is an open question if the motivational state also affects the ants' innate visual preferences. Wood ant foragers show an innate attraction to conspicuous visual cues. These foragers inhabit cluttered woodland habitat and feed on honeydew from aphids on trees. Hence, the attraction to 'tree-like' objects might be an ecologically relevant behavior that is tailored to the wood ants' foraging ecology. Foragers from other ant species with different foraging ecologies show very different innate attractions. We investigated here the innate visual response of wood ant foragers with different

SUBMITTER: Buehlmann C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9314291 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature