Ants also know how to change priorities

(All animals must make daily decisions.) Where will they live and what will they eat? How to protect yourself? They often have to make these decisions as a group, turning what seems to be a simple choice into a more sophisticated process. So how do animals know what is best for their survival?

For the first time, researchers at Arizona State University (English abbreviation ASU) discovered that, at least in ants, that animals can change their decision-making strategies. Based on experience. They can also use that experience to consider different options.

This finding is presented online November 7, 2013 in the journal Biology Letters, as well as in the December 23 issue of this journal.

Co-authors of the study, Taka Sasaki and Stephen Pratt, both of ASU's School of Life Sciences (ASU's School of Life Sciences), studied insects, such as ants for many years. Sasaki, a related postdoctoral research, especially the theory of adaptive psychology and experiments designed for humans for ants, in order to understand the process of bouncing decisions born among stupid ant individuals.

'What's interesting is that we can make decisions and ants that can make decisions - but ants do this collectively , ' Sasaki said. 'So how are we different from the ant colonies'.

To answer this question, Sasaki and Pratt gave a few Temnothorax rugatulus ants a series of choices between two teams with different characteristics. In a nest, the entrance of the nest has many different sizes, and in another group, the contact with the light is controlled. Since these ants are familiar with both smaller entrances and a lower level of light exposure, they must consider priority.

'This is like a person and buying a house,' said Professor Pratt, a professor associated with the school. 'There are a lot of options to consider - the size, the number of rooms, neighbors, the price, even if there is a pond. The list will still be more. And with ants it is similar, since they live in caves that can be dark or bright, big or small. With all this, just like with a house for people, it doesn't seem like finding a home with everything you want. "

Pratt has continued to study to explain that, because finding the perfect place to reside is impossible, ants have created a lot of balance for certain characteristics, arranging them in a series of notches. The most important edge. However, when faced with a decision between two different nests, the ants showed a level of intelligence that had never been observed.

According to the team's data, a range of choices faced by ants has made them prioritize their priorities based on the type of decision they face. The ants have to choose a nest based on the lighting level that prioritizes the light level through the entrance size in the last option. On the other hand, ants have to choose a nest based on the entrance size to arrange lower light levels in later tests.

This means that, like people, ants bring the past into the process of considering options when making a choice. The difference is that the ants somehow do it as if an ant colony doesn't have any disagreement. While this study builds on previous groundwork by Sasaki and Pratt, the latest experiments have prompted more questioning questions.

'You have hundreds of comments like that, and how they reach a consensus,' Pratt said. 'How can they do without any ants to tell them what to do?'

Pratt compared ants to nerve cells in the human brain. Both play a role in the decision making process, but no one understands how each neuron influences a decision.

Sasaki and Pratt hope to delve deeper into the behavior of ants and someday they can understand how ants affect the whole herd. Their greater purpose is to apply what they discover to help society better understand how people can make collective decisions with the same ease that the ants show.

'How does this help us learn about collective decision making and the difference between personal decision making?' Said Pratt. 'And ants are not the only species that makes collective decisions - so are humans, so maybe we can get some general insight. '