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Not a biologist, but my impression is that in some of ways, individual ants behave more like cells in a multi-celled organism than individual animals. The hive

Not a biologist, but my impression is that in some of ways, individual ants behave more like cells in a multi-celled organism than individual animals. The hive is the organism. (The analogy is certainly not perfect.) Considering that, I don't find this paradoxical at all, still very fascinating. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong, but I think cancer also in some sense helps the individual cell at the cost of the organism. For example, cancers induce the formation of cappilaries to get more nutrients -- not so dissimilar from these infected ants inducing other ants to feed them.

slver 5y ago
Most species have social behavior and live in groups, to different degrees. Individuals in a society and cells in an organism are also analogous. So while you're right to call them acting like cells in organism, I'm uncertain what "than individual animals" would mean.
- samatman 5y ago
  While this is true, eusociality is fairly distinctive. The part where most of the colony can't breed is what really stands out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality This does make individual hymenopterans less like individuals of other species, which are in competition with others of the same gametes for the privilege of breeding and the survival of their offspring. Hymenopterans are more individual than slime molds: they're multicellular, have their own organs, and so on. But less individual than any other form of multicellular animal life. It isn't altruistic, in a Darwinian sense, for a drone to give its life for the colony, because it isn't able to breed, the only way it can pass on its genome is by protecting the queen. I'm pretty confident what was meant is "than more individualistic animals".
  - slver 5y ago
    But most of our cells can "breed". Inability to divide happens only where it's necessary, like blood cells. It's not a social feature on its own. So I'm unsure why this is important about ants. Is "can breed" the ultimate clue of individualism? But again, this makes most of our cells... "individuals".
    - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
      Our cells will die when we die. Most of our cells have no future, but the ones that become our children and recombine with somebody of the opposite sex do have a future. That doesn’t mean the rest of our cells don’t exist in a state of genetic indifference. They have evolutionary pressure to improve the fitness of the individual, otherwise it’s a dead end for all genes involved. Competition between reproductively capable individuals is different. An ant that acts selfishly will reduce the fitness of the hive with no genetic reward. It’s a losing strategy. But in a society, a selfish person can reap the rewards while taking advantage or damaging the society they belong to. The fact that humans exhibit behaviors like self sacrifice and loyalty points towards the idea that humans’ evolutionary strategy is somewhat mixed. Selfishness and selflessness coexist because our fitness is to some extend, dependent on the society, or to the hand that feeds us.
      - mewpmewp2 5y ago
        To think of an analogy people could die when planet earth dies, or people could die if their tribe gets wiped out, as they can't any longer fence for the resources individually. Or people will die if a bad actor will launch nuclear bombs for their own selfish gain, pollute the earth etc. I imagine some cells like cancer cells also act selfishly while damaging the host and reaping temporary rewards themselves. So it seems like analogy of people and few bad actors makes even more sense in terms of cells as opposed to ants who all act only towards the greater good. Tldr; In order to succeed and survive you need many working together, however it is possible to get ahead temporarily acting selfishly, not caring about the greater good, but having too many of those bad actors will end bad for everyone. Which happens with both, people and cells.
    - samatman 5y ago
      This is incorrect on a fundamental level. Breeding is sexual reproduction. Parthenogenic whiptail lizards lay eggs and reproduce themselves, but they don't breed. Only our gametes can undergo meiosis and recombination, the necessary processes for breeding. Our other cells can engage in mitosis, duplication. There are only the two processes, which is why I say this is fundamentally incorrect. The queen and drones are the gametes of hymenopterans in a very real sense. They have cells which can undergo meiosis and recombination, workers do not. In fact, in some unusual species of ant, there are motile and fertile workers, in addition to and sometimes instead of the sessile queen. These are called... gamergates. This is glossing over some of the weirdness found in various hymenopterans, it's an ancient and diverse clade. Individual ants are animals, that's not controversial. Eusocial animals are less individual than any other animal, and their social groups are more like a single organism than the social groups of any other sort of animal. This, too, is not controversial.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  Ant queens mate only once in their lifetime and can live for 20+ years. All the individual ants born in a colony in that time are from the same genetic material.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  There's some linguistic ambiguity here. We can talk about "individual things" as in individual grains of sand, etc. and we mean "one instance of multiple similar". Then there's "individuality", which for social animals means that a member of society is largely self-sufficient. Take any human and besides a sexual mate, they can pretty much survive, even thrive, by themselves. But take an ant, unless it's a queen, and it'll run around confused and die. The ant is inseparable from its hive. It is not an individual. It's a physically separate body from other members of the hive, but unable to exist on its own.
minxomat 5y ago
> The hive is the organism. Literally part of the article.
Ericson2314 5y ago
Yes this is basically cancer, minus the "middle class" ants being infertile. There are virus-induced cancers too, which we should probably reconsider as a form of selfish mutualism in light of this.
lisper 5y ago
> The analogy is certainly not perfect Why not? Because this is exactly right. Note that all sexually reproducing organisms are like this: a single individual cannot reproduce. And for social animals like humans, a single mating pair cannot reproduce in the wild. (If you doubt this, watch a couple of episodes of "Naked and Afraid.) The minimal viable reproductive unit for humans is a tribe or village of a few dozen individuals.
homedepotdave 5y ago
In a way, don’t humans too?
- meowface 5y ago
  And coming at it inversely, I've also seen some hypotheses that neurons are a bit more autonomous than many think, and that the brain could be seen as a complex colony of billions of single-celled organisms working together, with some analogies to aspects we see in large-scale human coordination problems and game theory.
shostack 5y ago
You might really enjoy the Children of Time series. I won't spoil it, but ants play a very unique role.

slver 5y ago

Most species have social behavior and live in groups, to different degrees. Individuals in a society and cells in an organism are also analogous. So while you're right to call them acting like cells in organism, I'm uncertain what "than individual animals" would mean.

samatman 5y ago
While this is true, eusociality is fairly distinctive. The part where most of the colony can't breed is what really stands out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality This does make individual hymenopterans less like individuals of other species, which are in competition with others of the same gametes for the privilege of breeding and the survival of their offspring. Hymenopterans are more individual than slime molds: they're multicellular, have their own organs, and so on. But less individual than any other form of multicellular animal life. It isn't altruistic, in a Darwinian sense, for a drone to give its life for the colony, because it isn't able to breed, the only way it can pass on its genome is by protecting the queen. I'm pretty confident what was meant is "than more individualistic animals".
- slver 5y ago
  But most of our cells can "breed". Inability to divide happens only where it's necessary, like blood cells. It's not a social feature on its own. So I'm unsure why this is important about ants. Is "can breed" the ultimate clue of individualism? But again, this makes most of our cells... "individuals".
  - swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
    Our cells will die when we die. Most of our cells have no future, but the ones that become our children and recombine with somebody of the opposite sex do have a future. That doesn’t mean the rest of our cells don’t exist in a state of genetic indifference. They have evolutionary pressure to improve the fitness of the individual, otherwise it’s a dead end for all genes involved. Competition between reproductively capable individuals is different. An ant that acts selfishly will reduce the fitness of the hive with no genetic reward. It’s a losing strategy. But in a society, a selfish person can reap the rewards while taking advantage or damaging the society they belong to. The fact that humans exhibit behaviors like self sacrifice and loyalty points towards the idea that humans’ evolutionary strategy is somewhat mixed. Selfishness and selflessness coexist because our fitness is to some extend, dependent on the society, or to the hand that feeds us.
    - mewpmewp2 5y ago
      To think of an analogy people could die when planet earth dies, or people could die if their tribe gets wiped out, as they can't any longer fence for the resources individually. Or people will die if a bad actor will launch nuclear bombs for their own selfish gain, pollute the earth etc. I imagine some cells like cancer cells also act selfishly while damaging the host and reaping temporary rewards themselves. So it seems like analogy of people and few bad actors makes even more sense in terms of cells as opposed to ants who all act only towards the greater good. Tldr; In order to succeed and survive you need many working together, however it is possible to get ahead temporarily acting selfishly, not caring about the greater good, but having too many of those bad actors will end bad for everyone. Which happens with both, people and cells.
  - samatman 5y ago
    This is incorrect on a fundamental level. Breeding is sexual reproduction. Parthenogenic whiptail lizards lay eggs and reproduce themselves, but they don't breed. Only our gametes can undergo meiosis and recombination, the necessary processes for breeding. Our other cells can engage in mitosis, duplication. There are only the two processes, which is why I say this is fundamentally incorrect. The queen and drones are the gametes of hymenopterans in a very real sense. They have cells which can undergo meiosis and recombination, workers do not. In fact, in some unusual species of ant, there are motile and fertile workers, in addition to and sometimes instead of the sessile queen. These are called... gamergates. This is glossing over some of the weirdness found in various hymenopterans, it's an ancient and diverse clade. Individual ants are animals, that's not controversial. Eusocial animals are less individual than any other animal, and their social groups are more like a single organism than the social groups of any other sort of animal. This, too, is not controversial.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Ant queens mate only once in their lifetime and can live for 20+ years. All the individual ants born in a colony in that time are from the same genetic material.
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
There's some linguistic ambiguity here. We can talk about "individual things" as in individual grains of sand, etc. and we mean "one instance of multiple similar". Then there's "individuality", which for social animals means that a member of society is largely self-sufficient. Take any human and besides a sexual mate, they can pretty much survive, even thrive, by themselves. But take an ant, unless it's a queen, and it'll run around confused and die. The ant is inseparable from its hive. It is not an individual. It's a physically separate body from other members of the hive, but unable to exist on its own.

minxomat 5y ago

> The hive is the organism. Literally part of the article.

Ericson2314 5y ago

Yes this is basically cancer, minus the "middle class" ants being infertile. There are virus-induced cancers too, which we should probably reconsider as a form of selfish mutualism in light of this.

lisper 5y ago

> The analogy is certainly not perfect Why not? Because this is exactly right. Note that all sexually reproducing organisms are like this: a single individual cannot reproduce. And for social animals like humans, a single mating pair cannot reproduce in the wild. (If you doubt this, watch a couple of episodes of "Naked and Afraid.) The minimal viable reproductive unit for humans is a tribe or village of a few dozen individuals.

homedepotdave 5y ago

In a way, don’t humans too?

meowface 5y ago
And coming at it inversely, I've also seen some hypotheses that neurons are a bit more autonomous than many think, and that the brain could be seen as a complex colony of billions of single-celled organisms working together, with some analogies to aspects we see in large-scale human coordination problems and game theory.

shostack 5y ago

You might really enjoy the Children of Time series. I won't spoil it, but ants play a very unique role.