There are over 12,000 species of ants and they operate under
different algorithms that strike a balance between operating costs and resource
availability, depending on their environment.
For instance, in the desert, operating costs are high, since
ants have to expend precious water to go out foraging for food and more water.
In this environment, ants don’t leave to forage until there’s been a positive
signal, namely a certain frequency of ants returning from foraging. Since ants
only return once they’ve reached their foraging target, a steady stream of
returning ants indicates foraging has been successful. Different colonies have
different trigger. Because of advances in genetic decoding which allows
identification of offspring colonies, Gordon has been able to analyze many
years worth of data to show that higher trigger levels yield better
evolutionary success.
The Internet works in a similar way to these desert ants.
Data doesn’t leave an Internet node until there is a positive signal that
there’s enough bandwidth available. Hence the name the Anternet. The expression
“to a hammer, everything looks like a nail” comes to mind at this point.
Ants in the tropics have an opposite algorithm to desert
ants. The environment is friendly, so operating costs are low, but resources
can be scarce because of the plethora of competition. So these ants go out
foraging all the time, until they receive a negative signal. Understanding this
behaviour in ants could yield new insights for co-operating robots.
When ants find a really juicy stash of food, they recruit
other ants to join the party, so to speak, thus explaining that steady stream
of ants attacking your last picnic. It’s possible that cancer cells have a
similar recruitment behaviour and so understanding ants might even provide some
insights into cancer.
What an engrossing field. Ants may not be as pretty as fireflies (Sara Lewis' focus as described here), but, to me, they're immensely more fascinating.
