The Workers of the Ant Myrmica sabuleti can Learn and Use a Sequence of Four Odors to Navigate between Nest and Food Site

Abstract

The ant Myrmica sabuleti uses essentially odors for navigating. It has also several skills which presume that it could learn, memorize a sequence of odors and afterwards use it for navigating. By training (operative conditioning) then testing forager workers, we demonstrate that these ants are able to soon learn and memorize a sequence of four odors, i.e., thyme, lavender, basilica, and orange zest, linearly set during training between the nest entrance and the food site, and a simple additional experiment showed that the trained ants effectively used the learned sequence of odors for moving between the nest and the food. Moreover, as workers of this ant can associate odors with the time of the day during which they perceive them, they should be able to use a memorized sequence of odors at appropriate time periods in order to optimize a safe navigation. As this ant is known to use visual cues, odometry, area marking, and deposition of the trail pheromone to navigate, it is also liable to combine these strategies with that of following odor sequences.