Among the many kinds of insects and other animals, ants provide an excellent system for studying the role of group interaction in making tradeoffs in uncertain conditions. Studying ant colonies helps us understand human society and provides insights into creating better network analysis.
Understanding Ants' Survival Strategy
In a study published in PLOS Computational Biology, researchers investigated the collective behavior of desert harvester ants that allows them to regulate foraging activity in response to changing environments. An analytical model was developed to understand the role of behavioral differences among colonies in the long-term survival and reproduction success rate among desert harvester ants.
In the hot and dry environment of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, the harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) depend on the available seeds for food and water. As they leave their nest to collect seeds, it poses the risk of losing water while gathering more seeds.
Research lead author Renato Pagliara Vasquez worked with his team to develop a model for connecting these interactions to the possibility that a forager will gather seeds and leave the nest. Through this mechanism, the scientists tried to show the role of colony foraging rates in the response of ants to environmental conditions.
To gather data for the model, Pagliara Vasquez spent the summer in southern New Mexico, where their study site is located. Cameras and computer-vision software were used to record ant colonies entering and leaving their nests for foraging. A closed-loop model was also proposed to examine the role of incoming foragers in providing feedback to the colony upon assessing the external conditions, thereby adjusting the foraging rate of the colony.
The model reveals that as the foragers get exposed to the temperature and humidity of the environment outside the nest, changes in foraging behavior are observed under different conditions. It also suggests that colonies differ in terms of their foraging regulation due to variations in volatility.
Research senior author Professor Naomi Ehrich Leonard serves for a multidisciplinary approach at Princeton University. As a leader in its robotics and cyberphysical systems, Leonard plans to use the insights gathered from this research to propose robot teams that can perform search and rescue missions in inaccessible environments.
READ ALSO: Ant Colonies Vacate Their Nests When Temperature Gets Very High and Researchers Investigate Why
Ant Foraging Behavior
In the family of ants, foraging refers to leaving their nest to find the source of food until an ideal path is found. After completing one foraging cycle, the ants initiate another one, looking for a new source of food to survive.
As an activity involving the colony, foraging is a collective process relying on individual actions and behaviorally integrated groups. According to the Annual Review of Entomology, one of the challenges in explaining the socioecology of foraging is understanding how the behavior of a complex system is affected by the action of individual members. Aside from it, other factors may also arise, such as the forager's sterility, allowing them to contribute little more than forage during their job as food harvesters.
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