Models of visual navigation in ants

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Models of visual navigation in ants Andrew Philippides1*, Antoine Wystrach1, Michael Mangan2, Bart Baddeley1 and Paul Graham1 1 University of Sussex, Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, United Kingdom 2 University of Edinburgh, Informatics, United Kingdom Here we present a model of visually guided navigation in ants that captures the known properties of real behaviour whilst retaining mechanistic simplicity and thus biological plausibility. For an ant, the coupling of movement and viewing direction means that a familiar view specifies a familiar direction of movement. Since the views experienced along a habitual route will be more familiar, route navigation can be re-cast as a search for familiar views. This search can be performed with a simple scanning routine, a behaviour ants have been observed to perform. We test our model in a realistic simulation of a desert ant’s environment and also with images viewed by ants during behavioural experiments. Our results indicate that, not only is the approach successful, but also that the resultant behaviour shows characteristics of the paths of ants. As such, we believe the model provides a general demonstration that visually guided routes can be produced with parsimonious mechanisms that do not specify when or what to learn, nor separate routes into sequences of waypoints. Finally, we contrast our approach with the classical ‘snapshot’ model in which views are used as attractors to a point in space. This presentation summarises results from Baddeley et al. (2012) and Wystrach et al. (2013). Acknowledgements This work was funded by the the EPSRC, BBSRC and the Fyssen Foundation References Baddeley, B., Graham, P., Husbands, P. and Philippides, A. (2012) A Model of Ant Route Navigation Driven by Scene Familiarity. PLoS Computational Biology, 8 (1). e1002336. Wystrach, A., Mangan, M., Philippides, A. and Graham, P. Snapshots in ants? New interpretations of paradigmatic experiments. J Exp Biol online: jeb.082941 Keywords: insect navigation, Visual homing, Desert ants, Modelling of Behaviour, Computational Biology Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral presentation preferred Topic: Navigation and orientation Citation: Philippides A, Wystrach A, Mangan M, Baddeley B and Graham P (2019). Models of visual navigation in ants. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00060 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Andrew Philippides, University of Sussex, Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, Brighton, United Kingdom, andrewop@sussex.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Andrew Philippides Antoine Wystrach Michael Mangan Bart Baddeley Paul Graham Google Andrew Philippides Antoine Wystrach Michael Mangan Bart Baddeley Paul Graham Google Scholar Andrew Philippides Antoine Wystrach Michael Mangan Bart Baddeley Paul Graham PubMed Andrew Philippides Antoine Wystrach Michael Mangan Bart Baddeley Paul Graham Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.