Artificial pheromone controls invasive ant dance

Sandrine Ceurstemont, New Scientist TV

With a little trickery, you can make invasive ants follow your rules. A new installation called Ant Ballet, created by designer Ollie Palmer from University College London, in collaboration with biologist Seirian Sumner from the Institute of Zoology in London, uses an artificial pheromone to disrupt the movement of foraging ants.

In this video, you can watch Argentine ants getting fooled in Spain, where Palmer travelled to set up his artistic experiment. A nest in a tabletop becomes the ants' new home and a robotic arm in the middle periodically sprays out a powdered pheromone, which was developed in collaboration with a team of researchers from University College London. Since ants lay down chemical trails which they follow in search for food, the fake scent makes them deviate from their intended route.

Palmer has also created a foraging simulation based on trail-following behaviour (see end of video). Virtual ants move according to simple rules, governed by an algorithm and a tendency to steer towards pheromone patches. "About half of the ants lay trails, while the other half are passive," says Palmer. "This negates any complexity within the environment and behavioural changes due to the presence of food."

Although the simulation is highly simplified, Sumner is impressed by the collective organisation that emerges in the artwork. She also thinks that the demonstrations with live ants could be useful for research. "The intention is to control their dance, but from a scientific point of view it has exciting potential for conservation," she says. "An important component of applied research into invasive ant species is understanding how we can disrupt colony function."

The simulation is currently on display at the London Zoo in the first public exhibition of the work. The first demonstration with real ants will take place later this year at Pestival, an art festival celebrating insects, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

If you enjoyed this post, watch ants mimic fluids or colonise a scanner.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1db1d256/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cnstv0C20A120C0A30Cartificial0Epheromone0Econtrols0Einvasive0Eant0Edance0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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