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Research Article
Trail pheromone modulates subjective reward evaluation in Argentine ants
Natacha Rossi, Muriel Pereyra, Mariel A. Moauro, Martin Giurfa, Patrizia d'Ettorre, Roxana Josens
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb230532 doi: 10.1242/jeb.230532 Published 11 September 2020
Natacha Rossi
1Laboratorio de Insectos Sociales, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, IFIBYNE, CONICET, Ciudad Universitaria Pab. II. (C1428 EHA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
2Research Centre on Animal Cognition, Center for Integrative Biology, CNRS, University of Toulouse, F-31062 Toulouse Cedex 09, France
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  • ORCID record for Natacha Rossi
  • For correspondence: roxy@bg.fcen.uba.ar n.rossi@qmul.ac.uk
Muriel Pereyra
1Laboratorio de Insectos Sociales, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, IFIBYNE, CONICET, Ciudad Universitaria Pab. II. (C1428 EHA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Mariel A. Moauro
1Laboratorio de Insectos Sociales, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, IFIBYNE, CONICET, Ciudad Universitaria Pab. II. (C1428 EHA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Martin Giurfa
2Research Centre on Animal Cognition, Center for Integrative Biology, CNRS, University of Toulouse, F-31062 Toulouse Cedex 09, France
4Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France
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Patrizia d'Ettorre
3Laboratory of Experimental and Comparative Ethology, UR4443, University Sorbonne Paris Nord, Villetaneuse, France
4Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France
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Roxana Josens
1Laboratorio de Insectos Sociales, Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, IFIBYNE, CONICET, Ciudad Universitaria Pab. II. (C1428 EHA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
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  • For correspondence: roxy@bg.fcen.uba.ar n.rossi@qmul.ac.uk
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ABSTRACT

The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is native to South America but has become one of the most invasive species in the world. These ants heavily rely on trail pheromones for foraging, and previous studies have focused on such signals to develop a strategy for chemical control. Here, we studied the effects of pre-exposure to the trail pheromone on sugar acceptance and olfactory learning in Argentine ants. We used the synthetic trail pheromone component (Z)-9-hexadecenal, which triggers the same attraction and trail-following behavior as the natural trail pheromone. We found that pre-exposure to (Z)-9-hexadecenal increases the acceptance of sucrose solutions of different concentrations, thus changing the ants’ subjective evaluation of a food reward. However, although ants learned to associate an odor with a sucrose reward, pheromone pre-exposure affected neither the learning nor the mid-term memory of the odor-reward association. Taking into account the importance of the Argentine ant as a pest and invasive organism, our results highlight the importance of pheromonal cues in resource evaluation, a fact that could be useful in control strategies implemented for this species.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests

    The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

  • Author contributions

    Conceptualization: N.R., M.G., P.d.E., R.J.; Methodology: N.R., R.J.; Validation: N.R.; Formal analysis: N.R.; Investigation: N.R., M.P.; Resources: P.d.E., R.J.; Data curation: N.R., M.P., M.A.M.; Writing - original draft: N.R., M.G., R.J.; Writing - review & editing: N.R., M.G., P.d.E., R.J.; Visualization: M.G., P.d.E., R.J.; Supervision: R.J.; Project administration: P.d.E., R.J.; Funding acquisition: P.d.E., R.J.

  • Funding

    This work was supported by a cooperation between Argentina and France (Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innova and ECOS-SUD; Project ID A15B03) and the French Institute of Argentina (Project ID PLUS15B03; ECOS PLUS grant). R.J. was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (PICT 2016-1676 and PICT S.u. 2017-9). M.G. and P.d.E. were supported by the Institut Universitaire de France and Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Project Pheromod).

  • Data availability

    Data are available from the Figshare Digital Repository at doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.12445067.

  • Received June 4, 2020.
  • Accepted July 15, 2020.
  • © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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Keywords

  • Social insects
  • Linepithema humile
  • Trail pheromone
  • Sucrose acceptance
  • Appetitive olfactory learning

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Research Article
Trail pheromone modulates subjective reward evaluation in Argentine ants
Natacha Rossi, Muriel Pereyra, Mariel A. Moauro, Martin Giurfa, Patrizia d'Ettorre, Roxana Josens
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb230532 doi: 10.1242/jeb.230532 Published 11 September 2020
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Research Article
Trail pheromone modulates subjective reward evaluation in Argentine ants
Natacha Rossi, Muriel Pereyra, Mariel A. Moauro, Martin Giurfa, Patrizia d'Ettorre, Roxana Josens
Journal of Experimental Biology 2020 223: jeb230532 doi: 10.1242/jeb.230532 Published 11 September 2020

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