Trail-pheromone modulates subjective reward evaluation in Argentine ants

ROSSI, NATACHA; PEREYRA, MURIEL; MOAURO, MARIEL ALEJANDRA; GIURFA, MARTIN; D´ETTORRE, PATRIZIA; JOSENS, ROXANA

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS LTD

Año: 2020

0022-0949

The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is native from South America but has become one of the most invasive species in the world. These ants heavily rely on trail pheromones for foraging and previous studies have focused on this signal to develop a strategy of chemical control. Here, we studied the effect of pre-exposure to the trail pheromone on sugar acceptance and olfactory learning in Argentine ants. We used the synthetic trail pheromone component (Z)-9-hexadecenal, which triggers the same attraction and trail following behavior than the natural trail pheromone. We found that pre-exposure to (Z)-9-hexadecenal increases the acceptance of sucrose solutions of different concentrations, thus changing the ants´ subjective evaluation of a food reward. On the other hand, although ants learned to associate an odor with a sucrose reward, pheromone pre-exposure did neither affect the learning nor the mid-term memory of the odor-reward association. Taking into account the importance of the Argentine ant as a pest and invasive organism, our results highlight the importance of pheromonal cues in resource evaluation, a fact that could be useful in control strategies implemented for this species.