Moving between day and night: Navigational strategies and foraging costs of temporal niche partitioning

Insects are formidable navigators and their distribution depends in part on their navigational knowledge-base. Different species of Australian bulldog ants have highly specialized eyes that allow each species to operate at distinctly different times of day and night. This recent discovery now offers us the unique opportunity to identify the shift in navigational strategies used and the foraging costs incurred by day-, twilight- and night-active animals. The results will inform our general ideas, not only in the fields of animal ecology and neuroethology, but also in robotics, by identifying the optimal mix of navigational strategies and cues for day- and night-time activity schedules.