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ViewAttendees 4

10-Minute Paper

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

SysEB: Social Insects

Stability and adaptation in army ant bridges

Tuesday, November 7, 2023
4:06 PM – 4:18 PM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Azalea 1
In-Person
Eciton army ants create highly active foraging trails in the pursuit of prey. In order to create shortcuts and overcome physical obstacles such as variation in terrain elevation, workers link their bodies together to form remarkable living bridges. These bridges increase the efficiency with which other ants can follow a trail by making it flatter and more direct. Because ants forming such bridges are removed from the pool of available foragers, investing in these structures also has the potential to reduce the colony’s prey collection ability. In order to understand how the topology of obstacles influences the position and length of bridges, we allowed ants to build on apparatus varying in terms of these features and compared the resulting structures. We specifically investigated how the existence of nearby bridges influences the construction of their neighbors. We also tested whether investment in bridges was robust to small and rapid changes in obstacle length, a prediction from prior modeling work. The ability of army ants to optimize their collective architectural decisions can serve as inspiration for robotics and help us to understand group behavior in other taxa including humans.