DOI: 10.5061/dryad.xwdbrv1qk
title: Single-trial learning leads to mid-term memory formation in an ant during an appetitive but not an aversive task

description: Insects have been models of associative learning and its underlying memory
 mechanisms. Research on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the
 honeybee Apis mellifera yielded deep insights into the different memory
 types and their formation dynamics following repeated stimulus exposure.
 However, less is understood about the ability of insects to learn from a
 single exposure. Accumulating evidence is revealing that several insect
 species are able to learn from a single trial. Studies have largely
 focused on odour appetitive learning. In this study, we investigated the
 ability of the ant Lasius niger to learn from a single trial to associate
 a reward or a punishment with one side of a Y-maze. The ants successfully
 demonstrated appetitive learning but no aversive learning. This appetitive
 learning led to the rapid formation of mid-term memory, remaining
 sensitive to anaesthesia for at least 15 minutes post-training. Contrary
 to single trial appetitive odour learning described in other species, this
 learning did not induce the formation of long-term memory, calling for
 further comparison between learning types.
description: The data was collected at the University of Regensburg between
 the year 2023 and 2024. It was then entered in the excel file attached and
 uploaded to dryad for long term storage.
description: # Single-trial learning leads to mid-term memory formation in an ant
 during an appetitive but not an aversive task
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xwdbrv1qk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xwdbrv1qk) ## Description of the data and file structure The data was collected at the University of Regensburg on the ant Lasius niger, in 2024 (except the odour learning data which were collected in 2023). ### Files and variables #### File: Data\_SingleTrialAnt.xlsx **Description:** Raw data ##### Variables: **Single Trial** | Date | Day of training | | :-------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Colony | Colony of origin of the forager | | Ant ID | Ant number | | InitialSidePref | First arm end freely chosen by the ant | | Choice | Side selected | | Anaesthesia | 10 min on nice or not | | TimeAwake | Time to stand and move again after being taken from ice in seconds | | TimeEndArm | Time to reach the end of the second arm in seconds | | TimeSleep | Time to become immoblie after being placed in ice in seconds | | Logic | 1 if correct side is chosen, 0 if not | | Interval | Time in seconds between training and testing | | LearningType | Type of training, reward or punishment | | Treatment | A column for each of the treatments, with learning and memory intervals included | | Status | A column for the survival analysis, 1 corresponding to the event happening | *NA in time sleep column correspond to data that were not recorded at the beginning of the experiment, but the ants did all fall asleep* **Aversive5Choices** | Date | Day of training | | :-------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Colony | Colony of origin of the forager | | Ant ID | Ant number | | InitialSidePref | First arm end freely chosen by the ant | | TimeEndArm | Time to reach the end of the second arm in seconds | | Choice2 to 5 | Choice chosen by the ant after being put back at the beginning of the maze | | Logic5 | arm selected on the fifth consecutive choice, 1 if correct side is chosen, 0 if not | | Logic1 | arm selected on the second choice, 1 if correct side is chosen, 0 if not | | LearningType | Type of training, reward or punishment | **OdourLearning** | Date | Day of training | | :---------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Colony | Colony of origin of the forager | | Ant ID | Ant number | | Smell with Quinine | The smell that was associated with the quinine solution | | Quinine smell on Y-maze | The side of the Y-maze on which the odour associated with the Quiinine was placed on the Y-maze during testing | | Logic | 1 if correct side is chosen, 0 if not | | LearningType | Type of training, reward (sugar solution) or punishment (quinine solution) | ## Code/software Data analysis was done in R, the code is provided with comments in an R markdown document. ## Version change March 2025: The code file was added to Dryad.