When we work together with others, the contribution of each individual usually drops with increasing group size. In contrast, the reverse is the case with weaving anise: the larger the team, the more powerful the individual becomes. This is demonstrated by the ants during the nest building when they roll large leaves and stick together with combined forces. A study has now revealed the basics of this highly efficient teamwork. Accordingly, the secret lies in a sophisticated distribution of tasks. The results could also help improve the cooperation between autonomous robots.
Weber ants (Oecophylla Smaragdina) build their nests by rolling up large leaves with combined forces. First, individual ants turn the tip of a leaf backwards. Gradually, more and more non -genes are coming to each other. As a result, they form long chains that connect the leaf pages and can pull the sheet into the desired shape. Some workers then bring larvae to fix them, with whose silk they glue the leaf edges. In the same way, the Amen teams pull more leaves and stick them firmly so that a multi -layered leaf nest is created.
Stronger together
A research team around Madelne Stewardson from Macquarie University in Sydney has now examined the cooperation of the weaving anise more precisely. In particular, the researchers were concerned with the question of how the force contribution of each individual ant changes depending on the group size. “Both human and non-human teams can happen that the effort of the individual members decreases with increasing team size,” explain the researchers. “This phenomenon is known as a Ringelmann effect and is generally attributed to poor coordination or differences in motivation.”
For example, if we humans pull on a rope, two people pull more than one person alone, but not, as was actually to be expected, twice as strong. If more people are added, the individually upgrade continues to drop. In order to find out whether the weaving anise leads to similar loss of efficiency, the researchers had different sizes of different sizes pull on an artificial sheet that was connected to a power knife. To her surprise, Stewardson and her colleagues found that the ants not only maintained their individual performance in large teams, but even increased. “A single ant can draw about 59 times their own body weight,” report the researchers. “In teams from 15 ants, on the other hand, each individual pulls about 103 times their own body weight.”
Motorative for robots?
But how do the ants manage to be stronger in a team than alone? “We suspect that this super efficiency is favored by a division of labor within the teams,” explain Stewardson and her colleagues. “‘Active pullers” create a tensile force that is stored in chains of ‘passive holders’.” The ants at the lower end of the chain anchor themselves on the surface, stretch their bodies and capture their peers further at the forefront. This in turn have a better grip and can pull more strongly on the leaf.
From the researchers’ point of view, their findings could help improve the performance of autonomous robot teams. So far, robots in teams have brought up the same strength as alone. “If you program robots in such a way that they apply cooperative strategies inspired by ants, teams of autonomous robots could work together more efficiently,” says Stewardson’s colleague Chris Reid.
Source: Madelne Stewardson (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia) et al., Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/J.CUB.2025.07.038
