Journal: The Journal of Experimental Biology

Article Title: Ants prefer the option they are trained to first

doi: 10.1242/jeb.243984

Figure Lengend Snippet: Experimental procedure. Half the ants traversed an unscented 9 cm long runway to a receive a 1 mol l −1 sucrose reward (yellow dot) in a familiarisation visit (top) and were allowed to return to the nest, before encountering scented and treated runways in the following training visits. The other half immediately started with one of four potential configurations (lemon+pheromone shown here, see Table 1 ). Pheromone or dichloromethane (DCM) was applied to the whole 9 cm of the runway, while either a lemon or a rosemary scented 3 cm section was placed directly in front of the sucrose solutions. On the next training visit, odours and chemicals were switched. The test was conducted after ants visited both conditions once (in total 2 visits, or 3 visits with familiarisation) or after they visited both conditions three times each (in total 6 visits, or 7 visits with familiarisation). In the test, ants entered a Y -maze in which no reward or pheromone was present, but each arm presented one of the previously encountered odours, the side of which was randomised over ants. The initial decision was scored once the ant crossed a decision line 2 cm inwards of each arm, the final decision once the ant crossed a line 1 cm from the end. At the end of the chosen arm, the ant was allowed on a piece of paper and was gently put back onto the stem until the ant made 5 repeated decisions, which were used as an estimate of persistence and robustness of choice.

Article Snippet: As a reward during the experiment, 1 mol l −1 sucrose (Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) solutions were used.

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