Efficient egress of escaping ants stressed with temperature

PLoS One. 2013 Nov 29;8(11):e81082. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081082. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

In the present work we investigate the egress times of a group of Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) stressed with different heating speeds. We found that the higher the temperature ramp is, the faster ants evacuate showing, in this sense, a group-efficient evacuation strategy. It is important to note that even when the life of ants was in danger, jamming and clogging was not observed near the exit, in accordance with other experiments reported in the literature using citronella as aversive stimuli. Because of this clear difference between ants and humans, we recommend the use of some other animal models for studying competitive egress dynamics as a more accurate approach to understanding competitive egress in human systems.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Ants / physiology*
  • Escape Reaction*
  • Social Behavior
  • Stress, Physiological*
  • Temperature*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants PIP 2010-0304 (CONICET-Argentina) and PICT 2011-1238 (ANPCyT, Argentina). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.