Innate visual attraction in wood ants is a hardwired behaviour seen across different motivational and ecological contexts

Abstract

ABSTRACTAnts are expert navigators combing innate and learnt navigational strategies. Whereas we know that the ants’ feeding state segregates visual navigational memories in ants navigating along a learnt route, it is an open question if the motivational state also affects the ants’ innate visual preferences. Wood ant foragers show an innate attraction to conspicuous visual cues. These foragers inhabit cluttered woodland habitat and feed on honeydew from aphids on trees, hence, the attraction to ‘tree-like’ objects might be an ecologically relevant behaviour that is tailored to the wood ants’ foraging ecology. Foragers from other ant species with different foraging ecologies show very different innate attractions. We investigated here the innate visual response of wood ant foragers with different motivational states, i.e. unfed or fed, as well as males that have a short life span and show no foraging activity. Our results show that ants from all three groups orient towards a prominent visual cue, i.e. the wood ants’ innate visual attraction is not context dependent, but a hardwired behaviour seen across different motivational and ecological contexts.