Tiger salamanders’ (Ambystoma tigrinum) use of features

Abstract

In their environment, salamanders must avoid both predation and desiccation, necessitating efficient movement throughout their world. Although past research has indicated that salamanders can use visual cues in navigating through their environment, it is not clear how geometric and feature information are incorporated by salamanders in their movement through their surroundings. Past work with a variety of species indicates that geometric information is regularly used and that features are also used under some circumstances. We explored salamanders’ use of features when both had been available during initial learning. First, salamanders learned to navigate to a correct corner within a rectangular box with a distinctive column in each corner. Each salamander was assigned a correct corner, and salamanders were trained in acquisition to move toward the correct corner. Following acquisition, salamanders completed two test trials. In one, only geometric cues were available as the features were removed. In the second, the features’ placements were jumbled and conflicted with the geometric information. These results suggest that salamanders in this experiment used feature information over geometric information when both had been previously available during acquisition.