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Within an ant colony, each ant fulfills a specific role based on its caste. Queens focus on reproduction, soldiers protect the nest, workers gather food (or sometimes pilfer it), and certain ants appear to spend their days idle. In some species, castes even exhibit distinct physical traits and behaviors tailored to their tasks, working together to maintain the colony’s efficiency and ensure its survival. Their remarkable teamwork enables them to form living rafts and move fluidly, almost as if shifting between solid and liquid states.
This level of organization has led scientists to classify ant colonies and similar insect societies as “superorganisms” rather than mere groups of individuals. The ants and their castes function more like cells and organs in a body than like inhabitants of a city. Biologist Thomas O’Shea-Wheller’s recent study, published in PLOS ONE, reinforces this idea, demonstrating that ant colonies react to threats “in a manner akin to how a single organism would respond to attacks on various parts of its body,” as he describes.
When an individual animal faces danger, its response varies depending on the nature and source of the threat. For instance, touching a hot stove would prompt you to pull your hand away, while a kitchen fire would likely send you fleeing the house. To determine if ant colonies react similarly, O’Shea-Wheller and his team at the University of Bristol simulated attacks on different areas of the colonies. They chose the species Temnothorax albipennis because these ants occupy specific locations in and around the nest based on their roles, allowing the researchers to target the superorganism’s distinct “body parts.”
The research team gathered 30 ant colonies from a quarry in Dorset, England, and relocated them to their laboratory. After the ants acclimated to their new environment, the researchers mimicked predator attacks by carefully removing specific worker ants using a small brush. In some experiments, they targeted scouts near the nest’s edges or those exploring the surroundings, while in others, they opened the nests and extracted ants from the central areas.
The colonies exhibited distinct responses depending on the type of attack. When scouts were taken, the remaining ants retreated into the nest and halted or slowed the deployment of new scouts. This behavior mirrors the withdrawal reflex seen in individual organisms when a limb is injured. Conversely, when ants were removed from the nest’s core, the entire colony organized a mass evacuation, relocating to a new nest while safeguarding the queen, eggs, and larvae.
In both scenarios, the ants demonstrated collective responses tailored to the location of the attack. They addressed threats to their “outer limbs” and “core” with different strategies, showcasing their ability to adapt as a unified entity.
“Superorganisms may gain advantages by responding to predation threats as a single cohesive unit,” the researchers note. “This underscores the ability of ant colonies to utilize a collective ‘nervous system’ to tackle challenges effectively.”
