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First published online August 30, 2006
Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 3545-3549 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
doi: 10.1242/jeb.02395
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Uncertainty about nest position influences systematic search strategies in desert ants

Tobias Merkle1, Markus Knaden2 and Rüdiger Wehner2,*

1 Theoretical Biology, IZMB, University of Bonn, Kirschallee 1, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
2 Institute of Zoology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland


Figure 1
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  		Fig. 1. Experimental paradigm. (A) Training situation. Ants trained to a feeder located either 5 m, 10 m or 20 m south of the nest entrance were captured at the feeder and transferred to the test field. Filled square, nest; open square, feeder where the ants later were captured and transferred to the test field. (B) Example of a trajectory of an ant transferred from the feeder to the test field. Open circle: point of release; filled circle: correct position of the (fictive) nest; open triangle: end of home vector; filled triangle: center of systematic search (for definition of end of home vector and center of systematic search see data analysis); mesh width of grid was 1 m.

 

Figure 2
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  		Fig. 2. End points of home runs (circles) and systematic search centers (stars) of (A) 5-m, (B) 10-m, and (C) 20-m ants. The trajectories were recorded for five respective 10 min searches (see Materials and methods). The correct position of the nest was at the intersection of 0/0.

 

Figure 3
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  		Fig. 3. Accuracy of the path integrator. (A) Distances between the end of the home run and the correct position of the nest for ants captured at the feeder (5-m ants: median=1.27 m, N=51; 10-m ants: median=2.45 m, N=53; 20-m ants: median=2.47 m, N=50). Boxplots give the median, 25% and 75% quartiles, whiskers and outliers (+). (B) Distances between the center of the systematic search and the correct position of the nest for ants captured at the feeder (5-m ants: median=2.00 m, N=49, 10-m ants: median=3.04 m, N=41, 20-m ants: median=4.30 m, N=49). The values for the Kruskal-Wallis (KW) one-way ANOVA are given at the top, the P values of pairwise comparison are given underneath. P values that show significant differences at a level of at least 5% are printed in bold types.

 

Figure 4
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  		Fig. 4. Areas covered by the first 40 m of systematic search (5-m ants: median=37.77 m2, N=45; 10-m ants: median=66.28 m2, N=35; 20-m ants: median=77.81 m2, N=50). Conventions as in Fig. 3. Corresponding search-density profiles are shown above. For conventions, see Fig. 3.

 




© The Company of Biologists Ltd 2006