Pheromone trails in the Brazilian ant Pheidole oxyops: extreme properties and dual recruitment action

Communication of feeding locations is widespread in social animals. Many ants use pheromone trails to guide nestmates to food sources, but trail properties and how they are used vary. The ant Pheidole oxyops retrieves prey cooperatively using multiple workers. The recruited workers are guided to the prey by a pheromone trail laid by the initial discoverer. In comparison to other ants, this trail has extreme properties. Despite being laid by just one ant, freshly laid trails are followed very accurately (84.4 % correct choices at a bifurcation), but decay in only 5–7 min. This extreme accuracy and short duration probably reflect adaptations to underlying differences in feeding ecology. In particular, P. oxyops needs to rapidly recruit nestmates to a precise location in a competitive environment. Rapid decay combined with a natural walking speed of 1.4 m/min should set an upper limit of 4 m (an 8-m round trip) on recruitment range. However, experimentally placed food items up to 8 m from the nest entrance were cooperatively retrieved. This greater range is due to the trail having a dual recruitment role. It not only recruits from the nest but also intercepts ants already outside the nest, causing them to join the trail. Seventy-five per cent of ants joining the trail then followed it towards the food item. Even when direct recruitment from the nest was prevented, this secondary recruitment action resulted in seven times as many ants locating a food source than by chance discovery and in items being moved 46 % sooner.