{"id":226741,"date":"2024-05-31T20:58:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T20:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/31\/ants-learn-faster-on-caffeine\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:18:16","slug":"ants-learn-faster-on-caffeine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/31\/ants-learn-faster-on-caffeine\/","title":{"rendered":"Ants learn faster on caffeine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>\n    <iframe title=\"What happens when you give ants caffeine?\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gwuOXcH1hWQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n    <\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>Ants that drink a caffeinated solution can locate sweet rewards faster than un-caffeinated ants, suggesting the drug boosts learning.<\/p>\n<p>To see how Argentine ants (<em>Linepithema humile<\/em>) respond to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/definition\/caffeine\/\">caffeine<\/a>, researchers created an ant-sized arena on a sheet of printer paper in the lab. They then placed a drop of sugary solution on the paper for an ant to find. Some solutions had no caffeine, while others had low, moderate or high amounts, but all were placed in the same location.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe took a bunch of measures of their paths and how fast they were at finding the food source to assess if caffeine is actually improving their learning,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=cPnFNFgAAAAJ&amp;hl=en\">Henrique Galante<\/a> at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Of the 142 ants in the study, each was given four tries.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2338426-there-are-20000000000000000-ants-crawling-all-over-earth\/\">ants<\/a> who received low or moderate doses of caffeine took a more direct path to the sweet treat with each trial, suggesting they had successfully remembered the location of the reward. Ants without caffeine took more meandering paths that did not improve over time. Galante emphasises that this isn\u2019t about making the ants move faster, but more efficiently: caffeine had no impact on the ants\u2019 pace but did reduce the twists and turns they took to get there.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"article-image-inline ArticleImage\" data-method=\"caption-shortcode\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImage__Wrapper\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=1200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=100 100w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=200 200w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=249 249w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=300 300w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=400 400w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=500 500w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=600 600w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=700 700w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=800 800w, https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/22150504\/SEI_205551346.jpg?width=900 900w\" class=\"image size-full wp-image-2432621 ReplaceImageLazyload\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1130px) 900px, (min-width: 1025px) 900, (min-width: 768px) calc(100vw - 30px), calc(100vw - 30px)\" alt=\"Argentine ants (Linepithema humile)\" width=\"2024\" height=\"1350\" data-credit=\"Laure-Anne Poissonnier (CC-BY-SA)\" data-caption=\"Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) seem to benefit from caffeine\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) seem to benefit from caffeine<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">Laure-Anne Poissonnier (CC-BY-SA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"js-content-prompt-opportunity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The researchers found that more caffeine isn\u2019t always better, though. Ants who drank the lowest dose \u2013 25 parts per million (ppm), which the researchers say is similar to caffeine levels found naturally in some plants \u2013 improved their search time by 28 per cent. Ants that got the moderate 250 ppm dose \u2013 close to an energy drink \u2013 were even more adept, dropping search time by 38 per cent. But the highest dose, 2000 ppm, proved fatal.<\/p>\n<p>Because Argentine ants are a widespread and costly invasive species, Galante says the work could inform efforts to control them. His team is currently testing caffeine-laced baits in the field in Spain with the hope that the drug will boost ants\u2019 ability to learn the bait location \u2013 and in turn, help control ant numbers while using less poison.<\/p>\n<section class=\"ArticleTopics\">\n<p class=\"ArticleTopics__Heading\">Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2432370-ants-learn-faster-on-caffeine\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=home\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Ants that drink a caffeinated solution can locate sweet rewards faster than un-caffeinated ants, suggesting the drug boosts learning. To see how Argentine ants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}