We
all have different temperaments and personalities even if we can be fitted into
a small number of types. In addition, other animals also have their own
personal behavioral traits as we well know as we rush to serve our cat’s or
dog’s every whim.
An
interesting question is do groups of animals have recognizable group
personalities especially when we consider a highly organized social species
such as ants? Scharf et al set out to
sort this out by boxing up 50 colonies of Temnothorax nylanderi, a species of ant that forms small colonies of
about two dozen workers with one queen and live in small holes under the bark
of rotting trees (1).
A series of tests were carried out on
the colonies such as putting in a dead ant from another nest and watching the
aggression level, opening the entrance and measuring their efforts to close it
up, putting in some rotting ant corpses to watch the removal, and giving them
the option to relocate as this is often a choice in the wild.
For colonies that were producing lots
of new ants, they were more industrious to close up enlarged entrances so they
are prepared to stand their ground and not abandon their nest when under
threat. The colonies that weren’t as aggressive towards the dead non-nestmates that
were introduced and were not as quick to get rid of the rotting corpses were
also more ready to relocate and abandon their nest site for another rather than
defend it.
The conclusion of the study is that
social insect groups have a range of different personalities, which, in part,
is governed by how much they have to lose if they cave in to a threat. Makes
ants sound very much like the rest of us.
