ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia.
Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Jun 26;280(1765):20130683. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.0683. Print 2013 Aug 22.
Ants are efficient navigators, guided by path integration and visual landmarks. Path integration is the primary strategy in landmark-poor habitats, but landmarks are readily used when available. The landmark panorama provides reliable information about heading direction, routes and specific location. Visual memories for guidance are often acquired along routes or near to significant places. Over what area can such locally acquired memories provide information for reaching a place? This question is unusually approachable in the solitary foraging Australian jack jumper ant, since individual foragers typically travel to one or two nest-specific foraging trees. We find that within 10 m from the nest, ants both with and without home vector information available from path integration return directly to the nest from all compass directions, after briefly scanning the panorama. By reconstructing panoramic views within the successful homing range, we show that in the open woodland habitat of these ants, snapshot memories acquired close to the nest provide sufficient navigational information to determine nest-directed heading direction over a surprisingly large area, including areas that animals may have not visited previously.
蚂蚁是高效的导航者，它们依靠路径整合和视觉地标进行导航。路径整合是在缺乏地标环境中的主要策略，但地标很容易在可用时被使用。地标全景图提供了关于行进方向、路线和特定位置的可靠信息。用于引导的视觉记忆通常是在路线上或靠近重要地点获得的。这样的局部获取的记忆可以提供多少区域的信息来到达一个地方？在孤独的觅食澳大利亚跳蚁中，这个问题特别容易解决，因为单个觅食者通常会前往一到两棵特定于巢穴的觅食树。我们发现，在距离巢穴 10 米以内，无论是有还是没有来自路径整合的回家向量信息的蚂蚁，在短暂扫描全景图后，都可以从所有罗盘方向直接返回巢穴。通过在成功归巢范围内重建全景视图，我们表明，在这些蚂蚁的开阔林地栖息地中，靠近巢穴获得的快照记忆提供了足够的导航信息，可以确定朝向巢穴的方向，覆盖范围非常大，包括动物以前可能没有去过的区域。
