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S O C I A L B E H AV I O R
In the 2015 summer blockbuster Ant-Man, the charac- chical way in which many human organizations work, and it
ter Hank Pym, a scientist who has invented a suit that can shrink provides a convenient premise for a Hollywood film whose he-
a person down to the size of an insect, remarks that ants can per- roes are people. There’s just one problem: it’s wrong. Ants nev-
form amazing feats, but they need a leader to tell them what to er march in lockstep, united in obedience to a single command.
do. Pym wears a small device behind his ear that allows him to in- In the real world, the often random and apparently inept ac-
struct the ants to act as a phalanx of attackers that helps the ant- tions of individual ants, each without any sense of a common
sized human hero defeat an evil mastermind. goal, combine to allow colonies to find and collect food, build
The idea that ants have commanders that set the agenda nests, form trails and bridges, defend their host plants from
and orchestrate their activities resonates because of the hierar- herbivores or cultivate gardens—all without supervision. Ants
IN BRIEF
Ant colonies work without a leader. simple interactions based on scent. colony uses is related to its ecology. ants could illuminate other systems that
They organize their activities using The system of interactions that a Insights into collective behavior in operate without central control.
world. Perhaps its effectiveness at getting to new food resources Ant Encounters. D eborah M. Gordon. Princeton University Press, 2010.
first explains why this invasive species tends to outcompete na- The Ecology of Collective Behavior. D eborah M. Gordon in P LOS Biology, Vol. 12,
tive species wherever it invades. No. 3, Article No. e1001805; March 11, 2014.