D3363: Environmental influences on army ant collective architecture

What factors stimulate or discourage the construction of social insect collective architectures? In accordance with their nomadic life history, Eciton army ants build temporary aboveground nests called bivouacs, composed of thousands of living workers. Because bivouacs are frequently disassembled and reformed in new locations, they represent an ideal model to study developmental processes in collective behavior. By collecting Eciton colonies and employing computed tomography scanning and automated tracking we were able to investigate both three-dimensional and two-dimensional dynamics in bivouacs and document their formation and growth over time. Tracking individual connections between workers in the early stages of bivouac formation revealed a stereotyped initial construction process. We found however that the topology of building spaces can affect mature bivouac size. We further tested influence from chemical signaling on nest site preference. These results can serve as bioinspiration for algorithms and interactive robot groups. In the future we hope to expand upon this work by using our novel methods to explore dynamic physical influences on army ant collective architecture and the interactions involved.