Army ants dynamically adjust living bridges in response to a cost-benefit trade-off.

ABSTRACT: The ability of individual animals to create functional structures by joining together is rare and confined to the social insects. Army ants (Eciton) form collective assemblages out of their own bodies to perform a variety of functions that benefit the entire colony. Here we examine ‟bridges" of linked individuals that are constructed to span gaps in the colony's foraging trail. How these living structures adjust themselves to varied and changing conditions remains poorly understood. Our field experiments show that the ants continuously modify their bridges, such that these structures lengthen, widen, and change position in response to traffic levels and environmental geometry. Ants initiate bridges where their path deviates from their incoming direction and move the bridges over time to cr

SUBMITTER: Reid CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4679032 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature