Caught in My Web: Ants Teach Us That Societal Cooperation is Possible

Image by Luc Viatour at Wikimedia Commons.

Societies are made up of lots of individuals, which each have different needs, perspectives, strengths and weaknesses. Cooperating with many individuals may have great benefits, but also poses giant challenges, even for a species as bright as our own. Humble ants may have some useful insight for us - They are masters of cooperation. So for this edition of Caught in My Web, we observe the inspirational societal cooperation of ants.

1. At Inspiring Science, Sedeer el-Showk explains how ants coordinate their foraging expeditions to maximize efficiency, despite the fact that they don't have a leader telling them what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

2. This video from Nature Communications shows ants working together to move a giant (to them) Cheerio.

3. Ben Hooper at UPI shares a video with us of a fire ant colony that responded to flooding in Louisiana by clinging together to form an ant life-raft.

And this video shows ants going even further, using their bodies to create a floating bridge for other foraging ants to cross.

4. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology explain how ants form these rafts and demonstrate how they all stay dry.

5. At neuroecology, Adam J. Calhoun discusses how colony differences in foraging behavior can be passed down to new colonies. So maybe, those of us that figure this cooperation thing out can share the advice with the rest of us.