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An ant colony is a population of ants, typically from a single species, capable of maintaining their complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera, though the various groups of these developed sociality independently through convergent evolution. [1]
Drawing from his research on ant colonies, Tschinkel who is known as the creator of the field of underground ant nest architecture research, [1] provides an in-depth look at the architectural and biological complexity of ant nests and the innovative methods used to study them.
In ants, social conflicts, sex conflicts, or caste conflicts can exist. These conflicts occur within the same colony or supercolony at various levels: on an individual scale, between two or more specific ants; on the scale of sex, between males and females; or on the scale of different castes, between queens and workers.
The drones leave the colony on a nuptial flight or mating flight, find a virgin queen to reproduce with, and then die shortly after. [5] Colony of bees in a nest. Bee and wasp social structure is very similar to that of ants, except all of the members have wings. Both bees and ants communicate effectively using pheromone methods.
Colonies of army ants are large compared to the colonies of other Formicidae. Colonies can have over 15 million workers and can transport 3000 prey (items) per hour during the raid period. [14] [20] When army ants forage, the trails that are formed can be over 20 m (66 ft) wide and over 100 m (330 ft) long. [20]
Weaver ants collaborating to pull nest leaves together. Weaver ant colonies are founded by one or more mated females . [17] A queen lays her first clutch of eggs on a leaf and protects and feeds the larvae until they develop into mature workers. The workers then construct leaf nests and help rear new brood laid by the queen.
An ant supercolony is an exceptionally large ant colony, consisting of a high number of spatially separated but socially connected nests of a single ant species (meaning that the colony is polydomous), spread over a large area without territorial borders.
Because of this, ants are a popular source of inspiration for design in software engineering, robotics, industrial design, and other fields involving many simple parts working together to perform complex tasks. [2] The most popular current model of self-organization in ants and other social insects is the response threshold model.