ArticlePloS one2017
The interplay between maze complexity, colony size, learning and memory in ants while solving a maze: A test at the colony level.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Latent learning improves foraging efficiency in ants.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2026Article
- Using computer games to explore foraging-predation trade-offs and spatial learning in humans.Royal Society open science · 2026Article
- How a salt pan ant Cataglyphis fortis navigates artificially complex environments.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Desert ants avoid ambush predator pits depending on position, visual landmarks and trapped nestmates.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Transcriptomic Signature of Spatial Navigation in Brains of Desert Ants.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Rodent maze studies: from following simple rules to complex map learning.Brain structure & function · 2024Review
- Maze-solving in a plasma system based on functional analogies to reinforcement-learning model.PloS one · 2024Article
- The combined role of visual and olfactory cues in foraging byCurrent zoology · 2023Article
- The value of spatial experience and group size for ant colonies in direct competition.Insect science · 2023Article
- Leg or antenna injury inCurrent zoology · 2022Article
- Desert Ants Learn to Avoid Pitfall Traps While Foraging.Biology · 2022Article
- Computational exploration of treadmilling and protrusion growth observed in fire ant rafts.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- A framework to identify structured behavioral patterns within rodent spatial trajectories.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Active Inferants: An Active Inference Framework for Ant Colony Behavior.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Article
- Spatial cognition in the context of foraging styles and information transfer in ants.Animal cognition · 2020Review
- Article
- Diverse Food-Sensing Neurons Trigger Idiothetic Local Search in Drosophila.Current biology : CB · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Central-place foragers need to explore their immediate habitat in order to reach food. We let colonies of the individually foraging desert ant Cataglyphis niger search for a food reward in a maze. We did so for three tests per day over two successive days and an additional test after a time interval of 4-20 days (seven tests in total). We examined whether the colonies reached the food reward faster, consumed more food and changed the number of workers searching over time, within and between days. Colonies' food-discovery time shortened within and between days, indicating that some workers learnt and became more efficient in moving through the maze. Such workers, however, also forgot and deteriorated in their food-discovery time, leveling off back to initial performance after about two weeks. We used mazes of increasing complexity levels, differing in the potential number of wrong turns. The number of workers searching increased with colony size. Food-discovery time also increased with colony size in complex mazes but not in simple ones, perhaps due to the more frequent interactions among workers in large colonies having to move through narrow routes. Finally, the motivation to solve the maze was probably not only the food reward, because food consumption did not change over time.
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