Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Grob, Robin
• Holland Cunz, Oliver
• Grübel, Kornelia
• Pfeiffer, Keram
• Rössler, Wolfgang
• Fleischmann, Pauline N

Titel

Rotation of skylight polarization during learning walks is necessary to trigger neuronal plasticity in Cataglyphis ants

Ist Teil von

• Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences, 2022-01, Vol.289 (1967), p.20212499-20212499

Ort / Verlag

England: The Royal Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Many animals use celestial cues for impressive navigational performances in challenging habitats. Since the position of the sun and associated skylight cues change throughout the day and season, it is crucial to correct for these changes. desert ants possess a time-compensated skylight compass allowing them to navigate back to their nest using the shortest way possible. The ants have to learn the sun's daily course (solar ephemeris) during initial learning walks (LW) before foraging. This learning phase is associated with substantial structural changes in visual neuronal circuits of the ant's brain. Here, we test whether the rotation of skylight polarization during LWs is the necessary cue to induce learning-dependent rewiring in synaptic circuits in high-order integration centres of the ant brain. Our results show that structural neuronal changes in the central complex and mushroom bodies are triggered only when LWs were performed under a rotating skylight polarization pattern. By contrast, when naive ants did not perform LWs, but were exposed to skylight cues, plasticity was restricted to light spectrum-dependent changes in synaptic complexes of the lateral complex. The results identify sky-compass cues triggering learning-dependent versus -independent neuronal plasticity during the behavioural transition from interior workers to outdoor foragers.