How Ants Carry Massive Amounts of Food Without Getting Lost

First Posted: Jul 30, 2015 03:10 PM EDT

How to ants manage to carry massive amounts of food and materials back to their nest? It's all about teamwork. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at ants and have found how a balance of individual direction and conformist behavior enables ants to work together to move their food to the deserved direction.

In order to carry a comparatively massive object, ants surround it. The back ones lift the object while those on the leading edge pull the object. With that said, scientists have long wondered how these insects stay on track. That's why researchers conducted a video analysis to track the individual movements of ants in a group that was carrying a large food item toward their nest.

In the videos, the researchers saw individual ants helping to carry the object for a short while. Then, new ants take their places. When these new ants mobilize, the other carriers actually defer to the newcomers. As the new ant attaches, the steering of the object actually temporarily corrects. This means that more informed ants who know the trajectory of the object take the lead.

The researchers also created a mathematical model to describe this cooperative behavior. According to the model, the decisions of "non-informed" carriers fit an intermediate level of behavioral conformism; the well informed individuals are set to optimally steer the direction of the load. This model describes a critical point between conformism and individuality that enables the group of ants to coordinate their work.

"In this system, the wisdom does not come from crowds," said Ofer Feinerman, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Rather, some individuals supply the 'brains,' and the role of the group is to amplify the 'muscle' power of savvy individuals so that they can actually move the load."

Want to learn more? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.