Bisch-Knaden S, Wehner R
Department of Zoology, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
J Exp Biol. 2001 Dec;204(Pt 24):4177-84. doi: 10.1242/jeb.204.24.4177.
Homing ants have been shown to associate directional information with familiar landmarks. The sight of these local cues might either directly guide the path of the ant or it might activate a landmark-based vector that points towards the goal position. In either case, the ants define their courses within allocentric systems of reference. Here, we show that desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis, forced to run along a devious path can use egocentric information as well. The ants were trained to deviate from their straight homebound course by a wide inconspicuous barrier that was placed between the feeding and nesting sites. At a distant test area, the ants were confronted with an identical barrier rotated through 45 degrees. After passing the edge of the obstacle, the ants did not proceed in the trained direction, defined by the skylight compass, but rotated their courses to match the rotation of the barrier. Visual guidance could be excluded because, as soon as the ants turned around the end of the barrier, the visual cue it provided vanished from their field of view. Instead, the ants must have maintained a constant angle relative to their previous walking trajectory along the obstacle and, hence, must have determined their new vector course in an egocentric way.
已有研究表明，归巢蚁会将方向信息与熟悉的地标联系起来。这些局部线索的景象可能直接引导蚂蚁的路径，也可能激活一个指向目标位置的基于地标的向量。在任何一种情况下，蚂蚁都在以自我为中心的参照系中确定它们的路线。在这里，我们表明，被迫沿着曲折路径奔跑的沙漠蚁（Cataglyphis fortis）也可以使用自我中心信息。蚂蚁被训练偏离它们直接回家的路线，在喂食和筑巢地点之间放置一个宽阔且不显眼的障碍物。在一个遥远的测试区域，蚂蚁面对一个旋转了45度的相同障碍物。越过障碍物边缘后，蚂蚁没有按照由天空罗盘确定的训练方向前进，而是旋转它们的路线以与障碍物的旋转相匹配。视觉引导可以被排除，因为一旦蚂蚁绕过障碍物的末端，它所提供的视觉线索就会从它们的视野中消失。相反，蚂蚁一定是相对于它们之前沿着障碍物行走的轨迹保持了一个恒定的角度，因此，它们一定是以自我中心的方式确定了它们的新向量路线。
