I smell where you walked – how chemical cues influence movement decisions in ants

Interactions between animals are not restricted to direct encounters. Frequently, individuals detect the proximity of others through cues unintentionally left by others, such as prey species assessing predation risk based on indirect predator cues. However, while the importance of indirect cues in predator–prey interactions has been intensely studied, their role in interactions among competitors, and their consequences for community structure, are little known to date. Ant communities are usually structured by aggressive interactions between competing species. Responding to cues of others should be useful to avoid competitors or discover food sources. In ants and other insects, such cues include chemical footprints, which they leave while walking.

Here, we investigated how different ant species respond to footprints of others. Ant colonies were confronted with footprints of other colonies or species, and the workers chose between cue-bearing and cue-free areas. Moreover, we determine...