By If an infection takes hold in an ants’ nest, it could spell disaster for the whole colony. But some worker ants appear to have a workaround for that. When exposed to a pathogen, black garden ants (Lasius niger) tinkered with their nest layout in ways that could slow the spread of disease, a new study suggests.
Several animals are known to alter their behavior to avoid infections, including humans, guppies and mice. But these are the first nonhuman animals shown to actively alter their surroundings in response to infections, researchers report September 2 in a paper posted at bioRxiv.org. The preprint has yet to be peer-reviewed.
