Ali's colony inherits past memories beyond generations

by Sancho McCann

Ants are very familiar insects for humans, and there are many people who have continued to observe long after finding ant ants in their neighborhood in their childhood. Ali makes colonies composed of a few queen ants that spawn behaviors and a large number of workers, but that colony of ants "has passed past generations and inherited past memories," said Stanford University creatures Scholar Deborah Gordon says.

Ant Colonies Retain Memories That Outlast the Lifespans of Individuals | Science | Smithsonian
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ant-colonies-retain-memories-outlast-lifespans-individuals-180971022/

The human brain learns and memorizes various experiences and events through the network of neurons so that people can learn the contents read in books etc in the past and the feeling of riding a bicycle. Moreover, by remembering "the state at the time of influenza" and "the state at normal condition", it is said that "from the past experience to receive vaccination because it is very painful when it comes to influenza" Sometimes it changes the behavior of.

Having memory is not limited to humans, but also for other creatures including ants. For example, Kurooari memorizes the place where food is found for several minutes, and it is possible to reach the place where food once again after returning to the nest. In addition, Sahara Sabaku Anti wanders while descending with Gunegune and searches for food, but he can memorize the distance or the number of steps walked after leaving the nest.

by Hossam Taha

Akayama ali , who inhabits the forests of Europe, climbed the same tree for years at colonies and got food such as aphids excreta. Colonies' inhabitants continue to exist in the same place for decades, but the life span of Akayama ali is not that long. Nevertheless it is because colonies 'ants are kept climbing the same tree for years to gain food because they are teaching climbing trees from young ants to colonies' old ants.

Akayama ali can not go out of the nest during winter, many live in the nest spreading under the snow. Finnish Ali Scholar Rainer Rosengren found that when a young Akayama ali is born in spring, an old ant living before winter took young ant to climb a tree climbing up from before Did. This keeps memories of the tree climbing up from young ants even if an old ant dies, and it is a mechanism to keep climbing the same tree for decades.

Clonagarri inhabiting East Asia, including Japan, will never march in formation of rows of ants searching for food. Since we do not know whether there are other species in the surrounding area even if we find species of plants to serve as foods, each ant goes out of the nest and searches for food and collects only one species .

When it finds species, it will return to the nest hole with the angle of the sun as a guide if it finds the seed up to find the seed up to the place 20 meters away from the nest hole. And after putting the seeds in the reservoir in the cage, we waited until the timing when other ants brought the seeds back to the reservoir and when they encountered the ants they took home they went out looking for food again outside the nest about.

Every morning the area where Kuronagaari searches for food changes and it is said that it will continue to expand and contract like an ameba. Each ant does not know what kind of search range the colony at that time has, but it tends to go as far as possible than other ants that went out in the same direction. As a result, the search range of food will gradually expand.

Mr. Gordon tested whether the action pattern of the next day will be affected if it interferes with the search for cloned giant 's food. He puts a toothpick that hinders Ali's path around the borehole, places an obstructing block within the search range, making it difficult to search for a bait, or launches an attack that a worker takes a defensive reaction about.

As a result, the disturbance act itself was performed only on a small number of workers as seen from the whole colony, but the behavior change due to disturbing behavior appeared in the whole colony. Even after the interruption act has ended, the worker continued the behavior as if the disturbing act was being carried out, even the "ants that did not actually act against disturbance" who took charge of the work by circling, I showed a reaction to disturbing behavior at the point.

by Stavros Markopoulos

In general, colonies of Kuronagaari last from 20 to 30 years, but individual workers only have a lifespan of about one year. As a result, the working generations of workers are replaced a number of times within the life of colonies, and there is no worker ant that remembers and memorizes the events a few years ago.

However, when Mr. Gordon interfered with the colony of Kuronagaari, the "young" colonies that had not birth soon responded excessively to disturbance, whereas the long colonies of history responded calmly to the confusion, The action to search for food was not neglected. In other words, despite the fact that the young colony and the old colony worked the same way even though the age of the ant was actually the same, the wisdom of the unexpected situation varied depending on the years since the colony was formed.

Ali will decide the next action depending on the chemical substance and odor emitted by other ants. Therefore, as the number of other ants in contact with colonies increases, the more information available, the more information available, and as a result the ants of colonies that are larger and have a longer history are smarter than the younger colonies of the year Thing. Mr. Gordon said memory of the incident that occurred in the days when individual ants were not born has been taken over by posthumous ants who have not experienced the incident directly.

by Tim Keppens