Date: October 3, 2017
Source: Stanford University
Imagine you're a member of
the Cephalotes goniodontus species, an arboreal ant with a Darth
Vader-like head that has inspired humans to call you "turtle ants."
You're moving along a branch of the tangled tree canopy in Jalisco, Mexico,
following a scent trail left by other ants from your colony, but you hit an
abrupt end where the branch is broken. How do you know where to go?
Deborah Gordon, professor of
biology at Stanford University, set out to answer this and many other questions
when she began studying these ants in 2011. Peering into the trees -- sometimes
from atop a ladder -- Gordon spent hours recording which junctions the ants
choose.
Gordon's work, published online
Sept. 29 by American Naturalist, has led to the development of a simple
algorithm that explains how ants create, repair and prune a network within a
complex maze of vegetation. This algorithm could explain other biological
processes or provide engineering solutions.
An ant algorithm
The ants Gordon studied never
leave their forest canopy, moving instead through a tangle of vines, bushes and
trees along a circuit of trails that link many nests and food sources. Because
these food sources come and go, nests disappear and branches break, the circuit
changes slightly from day to day.
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