An international team of scientists led by biologist Professor Iain Couzin, co-director of the Cluster of Excellence "Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior" at the University of Konstanz and director of the co-located Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, and Matthew Lutz, a postdoctoral researcher in Couzin's lab, have discovered a new form of collective behavior in ants.
Their research demonstrates how ants use scaffolds, self-organized architectural constructs, to ensure traffic flow on sloped surfaces. Individual sensing and decision-making lead to scaffold forming, which enables the colony as a whole to respond dynamically to unexpected environmental challenges.
Systemic Stability
Scaffolds were shown to be highly adaptable, growing to different shapes and sizes depending on the context. They form rapidly in response to disruption, preventing ants from slipping and falling along the foraging trail. This is especially important when you are transporting valuable resources like prey through dense traffic.
The further ants initially slid or dropped off the table, the steeper the hill. The number of sliding and dropping ants fell to a low level until a scaffold had formed. When ants cross surfaces inclined more than 40 degrees, they form scaffolds, according to the researchers.
Adapting Into Human Society
A basic mechanism for scaffold formation has been proposed by scientists. When an animal loses its balance on a sloped surface and then regains it, it has a natural instinct to scratch the stone. It either begins or joins a scaffold in this way. The less slick the tilted surface gets, as more animals demonstrate the action. Since the trailing ants may use the current scaffold to cross freely, the structure gradually stops rising.
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