Spatial cognition in the context of foraging styles and information transfer in ants
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REVIEW
Spatial cognition in the context of foraging styles and information transfer in ants Zhanna Reznikova1,2 Received: 4 December 2019 / Revised: 13 May 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Ants are central-place foragers: they always return to the nest, and this requires the ability to remember relationships between features of the environment, or an individual’s path through the landscape. The distribution of these cognitive responsibilities within a colony depends on a species’ foraging style. Solitary foraging as well as leader-scouting, which is based on information transmission about a distant targets from scouts to foragers, can be considered the most challenging tasks in the context of ants’ spatial cognition. Solitary foraging is found in species of almost all subfamilies of ants, whereas leader-scouting has been discovered as yet only in the Formica rufa group of species (red wood ants). Solitary foraging and leader-scouting ant species, although enormously different in their levels of sociality and ecological specificities, have many common traits of individual cognitive navigation, such as the primary use of visual navigation, excellent visual landmark memories, and the subordinate role of odour orientation. In leader-scouting species, spatial cognition and the ability to transfer information about a distant target dramatically differ among scouts and foragers, suggesting individual cognitive specialization. I suggest that the leader-scouting style of recruitment is closely connected with the ecological niche of a defined group of species, in particular, their searching patterns within the tree crown. There is much work to be done to understand what cognitive mechanisms underpin route planning and communication about locations in ants. Keywords Spatial cognition · Ants · Communication · Navigation · Memory · Solitary foraging · Leader-scouting
Introduction Spatial cognition can be seen as a set of mental abilities to cope with the physical dimension of space and includes spatial coding, landmark anchoring, and route planning. A plethora of studies on spatial cognition and its consequences for animal behaviour have emerged since the second half of the nineteenth century. Recent experimental findings and theoretical models provide insight into the mechanisms that link sensory systems to spatial representations and to Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01423-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Zhanna Reznikova [email protected] 1
Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals, Siberian Branch RAS, Frunze 11, Novosibirsk 630091, Russia
Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 2, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia
2
large-scale natural navigation (Geva-Sagiv et al. 2015). Cognitive aspects of insect navigation have been experimentally studied since the first half of the twentieth century (Santschi 1913; Schneirla 1933;
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