Ants Slack Off for Colony's Greater Good

They are capable of carrying up to seven times their body weight, but leaf cutter ants are slacking off for the greater good, according to new research.

In a paper published in today's Biology Letters, Martin Burd of Australia's Monash University details how a lower level of productivity by foraging leaf cutter ants improves productivity within the colony.

"What looks inefficient is actually efficiency," Burd, who is attached to the School of Biological Sciences, said.

Burd measured the work done by worker ants tasked with collecting and harvesting leaf fragments in colonies of Atta colombica. He measured the load the ants carried, the time it took to cut leaf fragments and the rate at which fragments were delivered to the colony.

Burd and co-author Jerome Howard at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of New Orleans found the ants were carrying about half the maximum load they could manage.

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Source: Discovery.com