- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Magneticlike model for chemotactic navigation in ants

Rosa Flaquer-Galmés, Daniel Campos, and Javier Cristín*

  • *Contact author: javier.cristin@uab.cat
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013116 – Published 30 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fdhh-5jpy

Abstract

We propose a physical framework for ant navigation of chemical trails. For this, we use controlled experiments in which individuals follow narrow pheromone trails, for which ants display oscillatory motion, as previously reported in the literature. We model this behavior by treating chemotaxis as an effective magnetic interaction between the ants’ velocity and the local chemical gradient. Under suitable approximations, the model yields an analytical expression for the velocity correlations in the direction perpendicular to the trail, predicting an underdamped oscillatory decay. This theoretical prediction is in qualitative agreement with our experimental measurements, indicating that the model captures the essential dynamical features of ant trail following. We fit the model parameters to individual trajectories in order to assess the consistency of the underlying assumptions, finding the same parameter relationship in both theory and experiment. Our results contribute to the characterization of chemotactic navigation in ants and illustrate how physical modeling can provide mechanistic insights into complex biological dynamics.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (62)

  1. R. Wehner, B. Michel, and P. Antonsen, Visual navigation in insects: Coupling of egocentric and geocentric information, J. Exp. Biol. 199, 129 (1996).
  2. T. S. Collett and M. Collett, Memory use in insect visual navigation, Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 3, 542 (2002).
  3. J. D. Seelig and V. Jayaraman, Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration, Nature (London) 521, 186 (2015).
  4. W. W. Cochran, H. Mouritsen, and M. Wikelski, Migrating songbirds recalibrate their magnetic compass daily from twilight cues, Science 304, 405 (2004).
  5. K. J. Lohmann, C. M. Lohmann, L. M. Ehrhart, D. A. Bagley, and T. Swing, Geomagnetic map used in sea-turtle navigation, Nature (London) 428, 909 (2004).
  6. M. E. Jensen, C. F. Moss, and A. Surlykke, Echolocating bats can use acoustic landmarks for spatial orientation, J. Exp. Biol. 208, 4399 (2005).
  7. Y. Yovel, M. O. Franz, P. Stilz, and H.-U. Schnitzler, Complex echo classification by echo-locating bats: A review, J. Comp. Physiol. A 197, 475 (2011).
  8. G. H. Wadhams and J. P. Armitage, Making sense of it all: Bacterial chemotaxis, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 5, 1024 (2004).
  9. J. M. Keegstra, F. Carrara, and R. Stocker, The ecological roles of bacterial chemotaxis, Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 20, 491 (2022).
  10. K. F. Swaney, C.-H. Huang, and P. N. Devreotes, Eukaryotic chemotaxis: A network of signaling pathways controls motility, directional sensing, and polarity, Annu. Rev. Biophys. 39, 265 (2010).
  11. A. Cohen-Dayag, D. Ralt, I. Tur-Kaspa, M. Manor, A. Makler, J. Dor, S. Mashiach, and M. Eisenbach, Sequential acquisition of chemotactic responsiveness by human spermatozoa, Biol. Reprod. 50, 786 (1994).
  12. N. Kadakia, M. Demir, B. T. Michaelis, B. D. DeAngelis, M. A. Reidenbach, D. A. Clark, and T. Emonet, Odour motion sensing enhances navigation of complex plumes, Nature (London) 611, 754 (2022).
  13. G. Reddy, V. N. Murthy, and M. Vergassola, Olfactory sensing and navigation in turbulent environments, Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 13, 191 (2022).
  14. T. Emonet and M. Vergassola, Olfactory cues and memories in animal navigation, Nat. Rev. Phys. 6, 215 (2024).
  15. M. Renou and S. Anton, Insect olfactory communication in a complex and changing world, Curr. Opin. Insect Sci. 42, 1 (2020).
  16. A. B. Attygalle and E. D. Morgan, Ant trail pheromones, in Advances in Insect Physiology, edited by M. J. Berridge, J. E. Treherne, and V. B. Wigglesworth, Vol. 18 of Advances in Insect Physiology (Academic Press, 1985), pp. 1–30.
  17. R. K. Vander Meer, F. Alvarez, and C. S. Lofgren, Isolation of the trail recruitment pheromone of solenopsis invicta, J. Chem. Ecol. 14, 825 (1988).
  18. A. Lenoir, A. Benoist, A. Hefetz, W. Francke, X. Cerdá, and R. Boulay, Trail-following behaviour in two aphaenogaster ants, Chemoecology 21, 83 (2011).
  19. Y. Heyman, N. Shental, A. Brandis, A. Hefetz, and O. Feinerman, Ants regulate colony spatial organization using multiple chemical road-signs, Nat. Commun. 8, 15414 (2017).
  20. B. Liebchen and H. Lowen, Synthetic chemotaxis and collective behavior in active matter, Acc. Chem. Res. 51, 2982 (2018).
  21. N. Riman, J. D. Victor, S. D. Boie, and B. Ermentrout, The dynamics of bilateral olfactory search and navigation, SIAM Rev. 63, 100 (2021).
  22. E. F. Keller and L. A. Segel, Model for chemotaxis, J. Theor. Biol. 30, 225 (1971).
  23. W. Alt, Biased random walk models for chemotaxis and related diffusion approximations, J. Math. Biol. 9, 147 (1980).
  24. V. Calenbuhr and J.-L. Deneubourg, A model for osmotropotactic orientation (I), J. Theor. Biol. 158, 359 (1992).
  25. P. Amorim, Modeling ant foraging: A chemotaxis approach with pheromones and trail formation, J. Theor. Biol. 385, 160 (2015).
  26. S. Ramakrishnan, T. Laurent, M. Kumar, and A. L. Bertozzi, Spatiotemporal chemotactic model for ant foraging, Mod. Phys. Lett. B 28, 1450238 (2014).
  27. W. Bialek, A. Cavagna, I. Giardina, T. Mora, E. Silvestri, M. Viale, and A. M. Walczak, Statistical mechanics for natural flocks of birds, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109, 4786 (2012).
  28. A. Attanasi, A. Cavagna, L. Del Castello, I. Giardina, T. S. Grigera, A. Jelić, S. Melillo, L. Parisi, O. Pohl, E. Shen, et al., Information transfer and behavioural inertia in starling flocks, Nat. Phys. 10, 691 (2014).
  29. T. Mora, A. M. Walczak, L. Del Castello, F. Ginelli, S. Melillo, L. Parisi, M. Viale, A. Cavagna, and I. Giardina, Local equilibrium in bird flocks, Nat. Phys. 12, 1153 (2016).
  30. A. Cavagna, G. Cimino, J. Cristín, M. Fiorini, I. Giardina, A. Giustiniani, T. S. Grigera, S. Melillo, R. A. Palombella, L. Parisi, et al., Spin-waves without spin-waves: A case for soliton propagation in starling flocks, arXiv:2505.19665.
  31. Y. Katz, K. Tunstrøm, C. C. Ioannou, C. Huepe, and I. D. Couzin, Inferring the structure and dynamics of interactions in schooling fish, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 18720 (2011).
  32. J. Múgica, J. Torrents, J. Cristín, A. Puy, M. C. Miguel, and R. Pastor-Satorras, Scale-free behavioral cascades and effective leadership in schooling fish, Sci. Rep. 12, 10783 (2022).
  33. A. Cavagna, L. Di Carlo, I. Giardina, T. S. Grigera, S. Melillo, L. Parisi, G. Pisegna, and M. Scandolo, Natural swarms in 3.99 dimensions, Nat. Phys. 19, 1043 (2023).
  34. Z. You, D. J. Pearce, A. Sengupta, and L. Giomi, Geometry and mechanics of microdomains in growing bacterial colonies, Phys. Rev. X 8, 031065 (2018).
  35. P. G. Jayathilake, P. Gupta, B. Li, C. Madsen, O. Oyebamiji, R. González-Cabaleiro, S. Rushton, B. Bridgens, D. Swailes, B. Allen, et al., A mechanistic individual-based model of microbial communities, PLoS One 12, e0181965 (2017).
  36. M. Moussaïd, D. Helbing, and G. Theraulaz, How simple rules determine pedestrian behavior and crowd disasters, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, 6884 (2011).
  37. J. Cristín, V. Mendez, and D. Campos, General scaling in bidirectional flows of self-avoiding agents, Sci. Rep. 9, 18488 (2019).
  38. A. Cavagna, L. Del Castello, I. Giardina, T. Grigera, A. Jelic, S. Melillo, T. Mora, L. Parisi, E. Silvestri, M. Viale, et al., Flocking and turning: A new model for self-organized collective motion, J. Stat. Phys. 158, 601 (2015).
  39. M. Stumpe, Antracks freeware, https://sites.google.com/view/antracks/home?authuser=0.
  40. A. Dussutour, J.-L. Deneubourg, and V. Fourcassié, Amplification of individual preferences in a social context: The case of wall-following in ants, Proc. R. Soc. B 272, 705 (2005).
  41. R. Jeanson, S. Blanco, R. Fournier, J.-L. Deneubourg, V. Fourcassié, and G. Theraulaz, A model of animal movements in a bounded space, J. Theor. Biol. 225, 443 (2003).
  42. See Supplemental Material at https://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/fdhh-5jpy for additional information referenced in the text.
  43. K. Catania, Stereo and serial sniffing guide navigation to an odour source in a mammal, Nat. Commun. 4, 1441 (2013).
  44. S. Jayakumar and V. N. Murthy, A new angle on odor trail tracking, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2121332119 (2022).
  45. S. Popp and A. Dornhaus, Ants combine systematic meandering and correlated random walks when searching for unknown resources, iScience 26, 105916 (2023).
  46. T. S. Collett, D. D. Lent, and P. Graham, Scene perception and the visual control of travel direction in navigating wood ants, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 369, 20130035 (2014).
  47. S. Namiki and R. Kanzaki, The neurobiological basis of orientation in insects: Insights from the silkmoth mating dance, Curr. Opin. Insect Sci. 15, 16 (2016).
  48. S. P. Wechsler and V. Bhandawat, Behavioral algorithms and neural mechanisms underlying odor-modulated locomotion in insects, J. Exp. Biol. 226, jeb200261 (2023).
  49. R. W. Draft, M. R. McGill, V. Kapoor, and V. N. Murthy, Carpenter ants use diverse antennae sampling strategies to track odor trails, J. Exp. Biol. 221, jeb185124 (2018).
  50. M. Louis, Drosophila flight: How flies control casts and surges, Curr. Biol. 34, R91 (2024).
  51. D. D. Lent, P. Graham, and T. S. Collett, Phase-dependent visual control of the zigzag paths of navigating wood ants, Curr. Biol. 23, 2393 (2013).
  52. R. T. Cardé, Navigation along windborne plumes of pheromone and resource-linked odors, Annu. Rev. Entomol. 66, 317 (2021).
  53. A. Cavagna, J. Cristín, I. Giardina, T. S. Grigera, and M. Veca, Discrete Laplacian thermostat for flocks and swarms: The fully conserved inertial spin model, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 57, 415002 (2024).
  54. A. Cavagna, I. Giardina, T. S. Grigera, A. Jelic, D. Levine, S. Ramaswamy, and M. Viale, Silent flocks: Constraints on signal propagation across biological groups, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 218101 (2015).
  55. T. Moriya, Anisotropic superexchange interaction and weak ferromagnetism, Phys. Rev. 120, 91 (1960).
  56. R. E. Camley and K. L. Livesey, Consequences of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, Surf. Sci. Rep. 78, 100605 (2023).
  57. S.-W. Cheong and M. Mostovoy, Multiferroics: A magnetic twist for ferroelectricity, Nat. Mater. 6, 13 (2007).
  58. J. Zeil, A. Narendra, and W. Stürzl, Looking and homing: How displaced ants decide where to go, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 369, 20130034 (2014).
  59. L. Clement, S. Schwarz, and A. Wystrach, An intrinsic oscillator underlies visual navigation in ants, Curr. Biol. 33, 411 (2023).
  60. https://github.com/rosaflaquer/ChemotacticAnts.
  61. W. von Thienen, D. Metzler, D.-H. Choe, and V. Witte, Pheromone communication in ants: A detailed analysis of concentration-dependent decisions in three species, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 68, 1611 (2014).
  62. X. Cerdá, E. Angulo, R. Boulay, and A. Lenoir, Individual and collective foraging decisions: A field study of worker recruitment in the gypsy ant Aphaenogaster senilis, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 63, 551 (2009).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013116– Published 30 January, 2026
  • Received 2 June 2025
  • Accepted 13 January 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation