Galante Henrique, De Agrò Massimo, Koch Alexandra, Kau Stefanie, Czaczkes Tomer J
Animal Comparative Economics Laboratory, Department of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany.
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, 38068 Rovereto, Italy.
iScience. 2024 May 23;27(6):109935. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109935. eCollection 2024 Jun 21.
Argentine ants, , are a particularly concerning invasive species. Control efforts often fall short likely due to a lack of sustained bait consumption. Using neuroactives, such as caffeine, to improve ant learning and navigation could increase recruitment and consumption of toxic baits. Here, we exposed to a range of caffeine concentrations and a complex ecologically relevant task: an open landscape foraging experiment. Without caffeine, we found no effect of consecutive foraging visits on the time the ants take to reach a reward, suggesting a failure to learn the reward's location. However, under low to intermediate caffeine concentrations ants were 38% faster with each consecutive visit, implying that caffeine boosts learning. Interestingly, such improvements were lost at high doses. In contrast, caffeine had no impact on the ants' homing behavior. Adding moderate levels of caffeine to baits could improve ant's ability to learn its location, improving bait efficacy.
阿根廷蚁是一种特别令人担忧的入侵物种。由于缺乏持续的诱饵消耗，控制措施往往成效不佳。使用神经活性物质，如咖啡因，来改善蚂蚁的学习和导航能力，可能会增加有毒诱饵的招募和消耗。在这里，我们让阿根廷蚁接触一系列咖啡因浓度，并进行一项复杂的、与生态相关的任务：开放景观觅食实验。在没有咖啡因的情况下，我们发现连续觅食访问对蚂蚁到达奖励地点所需的时间没有影响，这表明它们未能学会奖励的位置。然而，在低至中等咖啡因浓度下，蚂蚁每次连续访问的速度快38%，这意味着咖啡因能促进学习。有趣的是，在高剂量下这种改善就消失了。相比之下，咖啡因对蚂蚁的归巢行为没有影响。在诱饵中添加适量的咖啡因可以提高蚂蚁学习其位置的能力，从而提高诱饵的效果。
