Invasive ant learning is not affected by seven potential neuroactive chemicals

Abstract

AbstractArgentine ants Linepithema humile are one of the most damaging invasive alien species worldwide. Enhancing or disrupting cognitive abilities, such as learning, has the potential to improve management efforts, for example by increasing preference for a bait, or improving ants’ ability to learn its characteristics or location. Nectar-feeding insects are often the victims of psychoactive manipulation, with plants lacing their nectar with secondary metabolites such as alkaloids and non-protein amino acids which often alter learning, foraging, or recruitment. However, the effect of neuroactive chemicals has seldomly been explored in ants. Here, we test the effects of seven potential neuroactive chemicals—two alkaloids: caffeine and nicotine; two biogenic amines: dopamine and octopamine, and three nonprotein amino acids: β-alanine, GABA and taurine—on the cognitive abilities of invasive L. humile using bifurcation mazes. Our results confirm that these ants are strong associative learners, requiring as little as one experience to develop an association. However, we show no short-term effect of any of the chemicals tested on spatial learning, and in addition no effect of caffeine on short-term olfactory learning. This lack of effect is surprising, given the extensive reports of the tested chemicals affecting learning and foraging in bees. This mismatch could be due to the heavy bias towards bees in the literature, a positive result publication bias, or differences in methodology.