Colony demographics shape nest construction in ants

The ant nest serves as the skeleton of the ant superorganism. Similar to a skeleton, the nest expands as the colony grows and requires repair after catastrophic events. We experimentally compared nest excavation by colonies seeded from a single mated queen and then allowed to grow for six months, to excavation triggered by a catastrophic event in colonies with fixed demographics. The areas excavated by equal group sizes differed significantly between these conditions: heterogeneous populations in naturally growing colonies as well as cohorts of young ants dig larger areas than old ant cohorts. Moreover, we find that younger ants tend to dig slanted tunnels while older ants dig straight down. This is a novel form of age polyethism, where an ant’s age dictates not only her likelihood to engage in a task but also the way she performs the task. We further present a quantitative model that predicts that under normal growth, digging is predominantly performed by the younger ants while after a catastrophe all ants dig to restore lost nest volume. The fact that the nests of naturally growing colonies exhibit slanted tunnels strengthens this prediction. Finally, our results indicate how a colony’s demographic and physical history are sketched into the current structure of its nest.