Lateralization of olfactory associative learning in Camponotus floridanus

Lateralization is a wide-spread phenomenon in the animal kingdom. Often, lateralization can be observed at the population-level where most individuals of a population share the same direction of lateralization. Theoretical models predict that population-level lateralization is more likely to manifest in social than in non-social species. Especially functions relevant to social interactions should show a population-level lateralization. We evaluated olfaction in the eusocial ant species Camponotus floridanus, since olfaction is particularly relevant to many social behaviors in an ant colony. The direction of lateralization was tested using the maxilla labium extension reflex associative learning paradigm. Our results indicate that there are differences between colonies in the strength and direction of lateralization. There was strong colony-level lateralization observed in some colonies. These findings seem to support the hypothesis that social species exhibit lateralization at the population-level and suggest that lateralization may be expressed at the colony-level rather than the species-level for ants.