Evidence for the effect of brief exposure to food, but not learning interference, on maze solving in desert ants

Abstract

AbstractTheories of forgetting highlight 2 active mechanisms through which animals forget prior knowledge by reciprocal disruption of memories. According to “proactive interference,” information learned previously interferes with the acquisition of new information, whereas “retroactive interference” suggests that newly gathered information interferes with already existing information. Our goal was to examine the possible effect of both mechanisms in the desert ant Cataglyphis niger, which does not use pheromone recruitment, when learning spatial information while searching for food in a maze. Our experiment indicated that neither proactive nor retroactive interference took place in this system although this awaits confirmation with individual‐level learning assays. Rather, the ants’ persistence or readiness to search for food grew with successive runs in the maze. Elevated persistence led to more ant workers arriving at the food when retested a day later, even if the maze was shifted between runs. We support this finding in a second experiment, where ant workers reached the food reward at the maze end in higher numbers after encountering food in the maze entry compared to a treatment, in which food was present only at the maze end. This result suggests that spatial learning and search persistence are 2 parallel behavioral mechanisms, both assisting foraging ants. We suggest that their relative contribution should depend on habitat complexity.

Autoren

Tomer GILAD
Arik DORFMAN
Aziz SUBACH
Romain LIBBRECHT
Susanne FOITZIK
Inon SCHARF

DOI

10.1111/1749-4877.12622

eISSN

1749-4877

ISSN

1749-4877

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

5

Zeitschrift

Integrative Zoology

Sprache

en

Online publication date

2022

Paginierung

704 - 714

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2022

Status

Published

Herausgeber

Wiley

Herausgeber URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1749-4877.12622

Datum der Datenerfassung

2023

Titel

Evidence for the effect of brief exposure to food, but not learning interference, on maze solving in desert ants

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

17

Datenquelle: Crossref

Abstract

Theories of forgetting highlight 2 active mechanisms through which animals forget prior knowledge by reciprocal disruption of memories. According to "proactive interference," information learned previously interferes with the acquisition of new information, whereas "retroactive interference" suggests that newly gathered information interferes with already existing information. Our goal was to examine the possible effect of both mechanisms in the desert ant Cataglyphis niger, which does not use pheromone recruitment, when learning spatial information while searching for food in a maze. Our experiment indicated that neither proactive nor retroactive interference took place in this system although this awaits confirmation with individual-level learning assays. Rather, the ants' persistence or readiness to search for food grew with successive runs in the maze. Elevated persistence led to more ant workers arriving at the food when retested a day later, even if the maze was shifted between runs. We support this finding in a second experiment, where ant workers reached the food reward at the maze end in higher numbers after encountering food in the maze entry compared to a treatment, in which food was present only at the maze end. This result suggests that spatial learning and search persistence are 2 parallel behavioral mechanisms, both assisting foraging ants. We suggest that their relative contribution should depend on habitat complexity.

Addresses

School of Zoology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Autoren

Tomer Gilad
Arik Dorfman
Aziz Subach
Romain Libbrecht
Susanne Foitzik
Inon Scharf

DOI

10.1111/1749-4877.12622

eISSN

1749-4877

Externe Identifier

PubMed Identifier: 34958517

Funding acknowledgements

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: FO 298/31‐1
German Research Foundation: FO 298/31-1

Open access

false

ISSN

1749-4869

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

5

Zeitschrift

Integrative zoology

Schlüsselwörter

Animals
Ants
Pheromones
Feeding Behavior
Learning
Desert Climate
Food

Sprache

eng

Medium

Print-Electronic

Online publication date

2022

Paginierung

704 - 714

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2022

Status

Published

Datum der Datenerfassung

2021

Titel

Evidence for the effect of brief exposure to food, but not learning interference, on maze solving in desert ants.

Sub types

Journal Article

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

17

Datenquelle: Europe PubMed Central

Abstract

Theories of forgetting highlight 2 active mechanisms through which animals forget prior knowledge by reciprocal disruption of memories. According to "proactive interference," information learned previously interferes with the acquisition of new information, whereas "retroactive interference" suggests that newly gathered information interferes with already existing information. Our goal was to examine the possible effect of both mechanisms in the desert ant Cataglyphis niger, which does not use pheromone recruitment, when learning spatial information while searching for food in a maze. Our experiment indicated that neither proactive nor retroactive interference took place in this system although this awaits confirmation with individual-level learning assays. Rather, the ants' persistence or readiness to search for food grew with successive runs in the maze. Elevated persistence led to more ant workers arriving at the food when retested a day later, even if the maze was shifted between runs. We support this finding in a second experiment, where ant workers reached the food reward at the maze end in higher numbers after encountering food in the maze entry compared to a treatment, in which food was present only at the maze end. This result suggests that spatial learning and search persistence are 2 parallel behavioral mechanisms, both assisting foraging ants. We suggest that their relative contribution should depend on habitat complexity.

Autoren

Tomer Gilad
Arik Dorfman
Aziz Subach
Romain Libbrecht
Susanne Foitzik
Inon Scharf

Autoren-URL

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34958517

DOI

10.1111/1749-4877.12622

eISSN

1749-4877

Funding acknowledgements

German Research Foundation: FO 298/31-1

Ausgabe der Veröffentlichung

5

Zeitschrift

Integr Zool

Schlüsselwörter

binary-tree maze
desert ants
forgetting
memory
motivation
Animals
Ants
Desert Climate
Feeding Behavior
Food
Learning
Pheromones

Sprache

eng

Country

Australia

Paginierung

704 - 714

Datum der Veröffentlichung

2022

Status

Published

Datum, an dem der Datensatz öffentlich gemacht wurde

2022

Titel

Evidence for the effect of brief exposure to food, but not learning interference, on maze solving in desert ants.

Sub types

Journal Article

Ausgabe der Zeitschrift

17

Datenquelle: PubMed

Evidence for the effect of brief exposure to food, but not learning interference, on maze solving in desert ants

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