Uncertainty about nest position influences systematic search strategies in desert ants

Foraging desert ants return to their starting point, the nest, by means of path integration. If the path-integration vector has been run off but the nest has not yet been reached, the ants engage in systematic search behavior. This behavior results in a system of search loops of ever increasing size and finally leads to a search density profile peaking at the location where the path integration system has been reset to zero. In this study we investigate whether this systematic search behavior is adapted to the uncertainty resulting from the preceding foraging run. We show first that the longer the distances of the foraging excursions, the larger the errors occurring during path integration, and second that the ants adapt their systematic search strategy to their increasing uncertainty by extending their search pattern. Hence, the density of the systematic search pattern is correlated with the ants' confidence in their path integrator. This confidence decreases with increasing foraging distances.