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The red harvester ant

Nature Methods volume 19, pages 1324–1325 (2022)Cite this article

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Harvester ants live in desert grasslands and eat seeds. Colonies manage water stress by regulating foraging using olfactory interactions between outgoing and returning foragers. A long-term study in New Mexico shows how this collective behavior is evolving in drought conditions.

Ants provide an opportunity to learn how collective behavior works and how it evolves. Collective behavior operates without central control, through interactions among individuals. It is widespread in nature, but it is not always easy to observe. For example, brains work collectively through interactions among neurons, but it is very difficult to trace the connections among neurons that produce a particular outcome. With ants, it is possible to see how independently moving individuals interact so as to adjust collectively to changing conditions.

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Fig. 1

Dennak Murphy

Fig. 2: Annual rainfall, number of colonies that were founded and number that died, and the total number of colonies.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to all of the students and collaborators who have contributed so much to the harvester ant study. It was not possible in a brief essay to review the related work of many other researchers; the work described here contributes to a collective effort to understand the behavior, ecology and evolution of ants.

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  1. Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Deborah M. Gordon

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  1. Deborah M. Gordon
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Correspondence to Deborah M. Gordon.

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Gordon, D.M. The red harvester ant. Nat Methods 19, 1324–1325 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-022-01671-4

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