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Acta Biologica Hungarica

, Volume 56, Issue 3–4, pp 215–224 | Cite as

An Experimental Analysis on the Magnetic Field Sensitivity of the Black-Meadow Ant Formica Pratensis Retzius (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

  • Y. CamlitepeEmail author
  • V. Aksoy
  • N. Uren
  • A. Yilmaz
  • I. Becenen
Open Access
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Abstract

Ant responses were tested under both the natural geomagnetic and artificially induced Earth-strength electromagnetic field. Foragers were trained for a month to visit a food source at the north arm accessed through an orientation platform assembly. Under the natural geomagnetic field, when all other orientational cues were eliminated, results indicated significant heterogeneity of ant distribution with the majority seeking geomagnetic north in darkness. However, in light, foragers failed to discriminate geomagnetic north. Under shifted artificial electromagnetic field, orientation was predominantly on the artificial magnetic N/S axis with a significant preference for the artificial north in both light and dark conditions.

Keywords

Magnetic sense magnetoreception orientation ants Formica pratensis 
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Copyright information

© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 2005

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Y. Camlitepe
    • 1
    Email author
  • V. Aksoy
    • 1
  • N. Uren
    • 1
  • A. Yilmaz
    • 1
  • I. Becenen
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and SciencesUniversity of TrakyaEdirneTurkey
  2. 2.Department of Electricity, Edirne College of Technical & Administrative StudiesUniversity of TrakyaEdirneTurkey

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