Luke Leckie

Our findings provide evidence that social animals can evolve to modify their spatial environments as a means to fight epidemics—an effect that could be more widespread than just ants!

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Interestingly, when we included social distancing in our simulations, it had a protective effect against transmission that was enhanced by pathogen-induced architectural changes. This shows a synergy between social and architectural epidemic defences!

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We then used an agent-based simulation of ant movement and pathogen transmission to show that these pathogen-induced changes to their nests should slow pathogen transmission, protecting the ants against future epidemics.

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Networks of ant nests. Orange: chambers; blue triangles: entrances; black lines: junctions

We found that pathogen-exposed ant groups excavated nests that have transmission inhibitory properties: they are less densely connected, have longer travel routes, are more modular, have entrances spaced further apart, and have less central chambers.

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CT-scans of ant nest growth over time

We used CT-scanning to track the 3D growth of the nests of ant groups that had either been exposed to pathogens or a control.

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Going into this research, we already new that ants use collective behaviour to fight off epidemic threats: they perform care-giving, social distancing, and social network modifications. We wanted to find-out if ant groups also respond to epidemics by modifying the structure of their nest networks.

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Architectural immunity: Ants alter their nest networks to prevent epidemics In animal groups, spatial structure shapes social interaction patterns, thereby influencing the transmission of infectious diseases. Active modifications to the spatial environment could therefore be ...

New in @science.org, a paper from my PhD showing that ant groups fight epidemics by modifying the structure of their nests, giving them “architectural immunity”!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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