Ants and Humans (2024)

While contemplating this poignant period in history, I find myself anticipating the moment we see the light at the end of the tunnel. It has proven to be an odyssey much longer with tragic losses and with more hardships to come. I admit, I’ve found it dispiriting and heartbreaking. At the same time, I believe there will be a day of liberation. I have to ask, what will this new beginning look and feel like? Unquestionably, when we finally get to the end of this tunnel, civilization in the future tense will be different. Much will fall back in line but significant change will be operating in many aspects of our daily lives. The rebuilding process will begin because humans are resilient, just like ants. Stay with me!

When I was a kid living at my parent’s house, I remember entertaining myself on those long summer days like any seven or eight year would do. Along the sidewalk next to the house were ant hills and I would go up and down with the water hose and wipe them out. Those ants must have been yelling, “Hey, kid, are you crazy, what’s wrong with you?” I would walk the same sidewalk the next day and to my amazement, they had rebuilt their complex civilization like nothing happened and in record time. There’s a lot to be said and learned about that kind of effort. It’s inspiring knowing we have much in common with our friends below the surface.

In fact, in a collaborative research project led by Danny Reinberg, PhD a professor of biochemistry at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator some interesting discoveries were made.It was a study of two ant species, finding that although 20 percent of their genes were unique, there was a compelling 33 percent of genes that are shared with humans.

"Ants are extremely social creatures and their ability to survive depends on their community in a very similar way to humans," said Dr. Reinberg, "Whether they are workers, soldiers or queens, ants seem to be a perfect fit to study whether epigenetics influences behavior and aging."

With further research, I found that there are species of “aristocratic ants” with employees trained to assist them. I wonder how much an hour they make. It also described the queen pampered and well fed and how she participated in the labors of the community. What I also found interesting is the ant colonies with millions of individuals working together are the ones that share the most common traits with humans. Like our society, the amount of information processed is proportional to the speed their society moves and grows.

According to Mark Moffett, we share more similarities with ants than we do primates. Both ants and humans can have societies in the millions. There are lessons here, like working in numbers collaborating 100% of the time seems to be the safest most efficient way to stand the test of time. Ants have been around for 130 million years with many lessons about sacrifice for the greater good, and ultimate survival.

Like us they are social, they distribute tasks and with one class of worker the primary job is to search for food and bring it back to the nest. They have other duties many workers are responsible for washing and feeding the kids. Bad news is, males lead a brief existence but a boost to girl power is that the queen seems to be quite literally, the queen of the hill.

Other interesting factors are according to a new study, not every ant has the same personality. Colonies have adventurous risk-takers exploring the great outdoors and foraging for food linked to food collecting strategies. Once considered human traits, studies have shown insects have personalities showing shy and bold members and differences in risk tolerance. Some bold were highly active foragers while others were shy, risk averse and fearful of new environments.

Although ants exhibit independent units with different goals and needs, these goals and needs align to the level of the colony goals and needs. They teach each other through interaction. It starts with a recruitment run. A single leader teaches one follower the route to resources and better nest sites. If their partner goes missing, they have a protocol where former leaders stand still and wait for missing followers and followers engage in a search for their leader. Which is common sense but remember we’re talking about ants here.

It’s fascinating because many social insect colonies have a large number of lazy individuals that don’t work. They are known as redundant individuals or inactive workers and it’s a safety net that allows a nest to respond rapidly to disruption such as loss of workers or predator attacks. They are also able to switch jobs in response to disruption. They may have jobs that specialize but they can switch to fill the gap if needed. In much the same way, with our State Emergency Services, we have people who volunteer for work in other areas. They respond when an emergency strikes to help fix the problem.

Not that these insect systems are a replacement for human systems but comparing social insect systems, we can understand general features that contribute to resilience across different scales and types of disturbances. Most of this we already intuitively do but borrowing ideas, tools and concepts from resilience work in other disciplines, physics, economics, and engineering, we gain an understanding of why we are so similar. Although we will have challenges, we have natural mechanisms that kick in during such challenges.

David Hughes Associate Professor of Entomology and Biology Penn State says, "Specifically, ants actively regulate their spatial distribution and interaction behaviors in a way that allows them to maintain critical elements of their social interaction patterns -- such as food and information exchange -- in spite of drastic changes in their environment."

Ant’s invented artificial intelligence, computers, and Google, not really but they can create superbrains, they come together as huge groups and use their intellect as a whole. It comes down to algorithm which is a shared trait for humans and ants. According to a study by Deborah Gordon, professor of biology at Stanford University, algorithm explains how ants create and repair trail networks. This is a shared capacity that we humans have with ants as well. Our ability to bounce back after facing adversity lends itself to not only survive but to thrive, despite experiences of trauma.

Resilience is an innate human capacity that can be learned by anyone and for a great deal of us its built in and intuitive. I believe that all people have ability to develop skills for resilience. According to Michael Unger of the Resilience Research Center, resilience is the human capacity to navigate culturally meaningful resources to sustain our wellbeing. It’s our ability to make plans, follow through, problem solve, and manage impulses and feelings. It is a skill that humans have as we adapt to the challenges at hand and perpetually.

We have our share of flaws and vulnerabilities, however, to paraphrase an article by Jeremy Lent published by Open Democracy, humans are best understood not by our selfish drives for power but by cooperation, group identity, and sense of fair play. In contrast to chimpanzees being obsessed with competing against each other, humans have evolved becoming the most cooperative primates. Working collaboratively on complex tasks and creating communities with shared values and practices has become our basis for culture and civilization.

In fact, in the view of prominent evolutionary psychologist, it was our intrinsic sense of fairness that has led to our evolutionary success as a specie. Furthermore, it has created the cognitive foundation for crucial values of the modern world such as freedom, equality and representative government.

This leads me to believe that although we agree to disagree in so many ways, survival is one subject we all seem to agree on. Life is precious. We’ll never be of the same as thinkers, and why would we want to be. We can still agglomerate and communicate around some simple ideas regarding our human spirit while respecting and appreciating our diversity. This is a great start as we as humans survive, thrive, and appreciate life together as individuals, members of our families, friends and communities as well as our connection and reliance to our home terra firma Earth : )

Click here for a copy of Ants and Humans

Sources:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100826141221.htm