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Small fire ant rafts are unstable

Hungtang Ko1, Mathias Hadgu1, Keyana Komilian2, and David L. Hu1,3

  • 1Woodruff Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
  • 2Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
  • 3School of Biological Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 090501 – Published 20 September, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.090501

Abstract

In this combined experimental and numerical study, we film the formation of fire ant rafts to determine how they cohere together. Surprisingly, we discover that ants prioritize separation and exploration: they flail legs and bounce off neighbors when they collide. Despite the active repulsion, fire ants cohere by the Cheerios effect, a capillary force that attracts small floating objects such as breakfast cereal. Experiments reveal that rafts consisting of fewer than ten ants disintegrate within minutes. Predictions by a Langevin model reproduce the stability transition and the critical raft size, which emerges from the balance between their mutual repulsion and the Cheerios effect. This work may inspire physically grounded models for the behavior of natural swarms.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, 090501– Published 20 September, 2022
  • Received 7 June 2022
  • Accepted 29 August 2022
Article part of CHORUS
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