Group of Ants Function Similarly to Neural Networks in the Brain, New Study Suggests

In a similar manner to how neural computations result in decisions; colonies make decisions to leave rising temperatures.

One colony of ants will soon make a choice because of the rising temperatures. Each ant can feel the heat building beneath its feet, but it continues to move forward as usual until suddenly, the ants turn around.

The choice to evacuate has already been made, so everyone rushes out together. It almost seems as though the ant colony has a larger, collective mind.

The behavior of Ant Colonies

(Photo : MD_JERRY/Unsplashs)

According to a recent study, ant colonies do indeed exhibit behaviors that are comparable to brain networks of neurons, as per ScienceDaily.

Daniel Kronauer of Rockefeller University and his postdoctoral colleague Asaf Gal, created a brand-new experimental setup to carefully examine decision-making in ant colonies.

They discovered that a colony's decision to leave due to rising temperatures depends on both the rate of heat increase and the size of the ant group, as disclosed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the research, ants arrive at a group response by fusing sensory data with group parameters, a process akin to neural computations causing choices.

According to Kronauer, the director of the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior, they pioneered a theory to view the ant colony as a cognitive-like system that recognizes inputs, and then transforms them into behavioral outputs.

This is a crucial first step in fully comprehending the processes involved in collective computation in insect societies.

Making decisions essentially comes down to a series of calculations intended to maximize benefits and minimize costs.

For instance, an animal must recognize sensory input like heat past a certain level to produce a certain pricey behavior, like running away, according to a common type of decision-making known as sensory response thresholding.

It won't be worthwhile if the temperature increase isn't significant enough.

Kronauer and Gal sought to understand how group dynamics affect this kind of processing of information at the collective level.

For that, the scientists created a system that allowed them to carefully perturb ant colonies with temperature rises.

They marked each insect with a different colored dot and used a tracking camera to follow their movements to monitor the behavioral responses of both the individual ants as well as the entire colony.

By varying more parameters and observing how the ants react, Kronauer and Gal hoped to improve their theoretical model of the ant colony's decision-making process in upcoming research.

For instance, they can alter the concentration of pheromones in the ants' enclosure, or breed ants with an altered genetic makeup that has different sensitivities to temperature changes.

Also Read: Ants Change 'Careers' As They Age, According To New Study [VIDEO]

Points of ants due to climate change

Researchers from NASA's Langley Research Center, led by Yongxiang Hu, discovered a connection between the time it takes an ant to enter and leave its colony, and the time it takes a photon to enter and leave the snow, as per Photonics Media.

The average amount of time an ant needs to spend exploring a colony before leaving it, according to Hu's chapter on math and biology research, is equal to four of the colony's volumes divided by its surface area.

Hu and his team created a simulation model to test how well the math applied to ant behavior also applied to photon behavior.

They discovered that a comparable equation could be used to measure both.

A photon of light from a lidar instrument enters snow and is scattered randomized within the snow particles before it exits, like how an ant enters the colony and moves around randomly before arising.