Directional vibration sensing in the leafcutter ant Atta sexdens

Leafcutter ants communicate with the substrate-borne component of the vibratory emission produced by stridulation. Stridulatory signals in the genus Atta have been described in different behavioural contexts, such as foraging, alarm signalling and collective nest building. Stridulatory vibrations are employed to recruit nestmates, which can localize the source of vibration, but there is little information about the underlying mechanisms. Our experiments reveal that time-of-arrival delays of the vibrational signals are used for tropotactic orientation in Atta sexdens. The detected time delays are in the same range as the time delays detected by termites. Chemical communication is also of great importance in foraging organization, and signals of different modalities may be combined in promoting the organization of collective foraging. Here we show that the tropotactic orientation to vibrational signals interacts with chemical communication signals.
Summary: Leafcutter ants communicate via substrate vibrations. Here we show that time delays between legs are used for orientation in a foraging context and that alarm pheromones interfere by changing the social context.