Ant intelligence; blocking pathogens (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 19, 2024, 18:50 (65 days ago) @ David Turell

By controlling entrances and layout:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ants-change-nest-architecture-pathogen

"If an infection takes hold in an ants’ nest, it could spell disaster for the whole colony. But some worker ants appear to have a workaround for that. When exposed to a pathogen, black garden ants (Lasius niger) tinkered with their nest layout in ways that could slow the spread of disease, a new study suggests.

"Several animals are known to alter their behavior to avoid infections, including humans, guppies and mice. But these are the first nonhuman animals shown to actively alter their surroundings in response to infections, researchers report September 2...

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"Ant colonies exposed to the pathogen dug nests faster and initially made more tunnels than healthy colonies, and after six days, had made several structural modifications, including spacing entrances 0.62 centimeters farther apart on average. The exposed colonies also placed chambers — which house colony resources such as queens, their brood and food — in less central locations. And ants infected with the fungus spent more time at the surface than their coworkers, which the study suggests is probably a form of self-isolation.

"The team then used spatial network analysis and disease transmission simulations to see if the changes would have any noticeable impact on the way disease would spread in the nests. Taking the designs crafted by the exposed and unexposed colonies, the team simulated what would happen if a pathogen was introduced. Ant colonies in the disease-resistant redesigns would have a significantly lower fungal load — and fewer lethal doses — than those in nests built without any previous exposure to disease, the team found.

"The findings are fascinating, though not surprising, says Sebastian Stockmaier, a behavioral disease ecologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Social insects like ants, bees and termites have evolved a range of colony-level defenses to effectively manage diseases, he says, and large-scale outbreaks are rare.

"Group living is generally thought to increase the risk of disease, and this threat is particularly pronounced in social insects because of their low genetic diversity and frequent social interactions, factors which help disease to spread. Because of this, when faced with disease, “their strategies are typically targeted at protecting the group as a whole, rather than focusing on the individual,” says Stockmaier. (my bold)

Comment: note my bold. Can ants recognize that concept of group protection? I doubt it and feel they were instructed by design.