Sentences with phrase «trail of pheromones»

An ant scout will leave the nest to look for food, laying a trail of pheromones as it goes.

Not exact matches

Researchers working on the Ribeirão Preto campus of the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have discovered that a bacterium found in the microbiota associated with leafcutter ant species Atta sexdens rubropilosa produces the so - called «trail pheromones,» i.e, the aromatic chemical compounds used by the ants to lay a trail to their nest.

Bruckstein's model replaces the pheromones by dynamical rules, but this does not deny the importance of pheromones in practice: the rules are a simplified version of «follow the previous pheromone trail but smooth it out a bit».

This visualization is based on the foraging behavior of the seed harvesting ant P. barbatus, a species which does not use pheromone trails for finding food.

Then the team allowed unaltered males to choose between scent trails of altered males, large and small females, unaltered males, and she - males (unaltered males that naturally emit small amounts of female pheromones).

However, when one of them finds some food in the vicinity of the colony, it takes a tiny piece of it to the nest, leaving a trail of a scent - emanating substance called pheromones.

The scientists had already verified in previous studies that the «persistence» of ants, or rather, their tendency not to change their direction while there are no obstacles or external effects, together with the «reinforcement» occurring in areas which they have already visited (thanks to the pheromone trail that they leave) are two factors which determine their routes as they forage.

This eventually leads to an optimization of the path: Since pheromones are evaporative, the scent is the stronger the shorter the trail is — so more ants follow the shortest trail, again leaving scent marks.

An ant faced with two paths to a food source may not know which is best, but an ant colony can quickly sort this out: Individuals leave trails of chemicals called pheromones to mark the route from nest to food and back.

When ant colonies are moving or when they have found a source of food, ants leave a scent trail for other ants to follow, and this happens when an ant secretes a chemical called a pheromone.