Australian Scientists Use 'Age of Empires' To Simulate Ant Warfare

Slashdot reader TranquilVoid writes: To better understand the battles between native and invasive ants, scientists at Australia's national science agency have turned to Microsoft's classic computer game to model ant warfare. Across Australia, 50 different species of invasive ants have established themselves, including electric ants, fire ants and yellow crazy ants, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent attempting to eradicate them. "Ants are one of the few groups of animal species in which warfare resembles human warfare, in terms of scale and mortality," researcher Samuel Lymbery said. The research found small armies of strong soldiers did better in complex terrain-based battlefields and large armies of weaker soldiers fared better in simple open battlefields. In the ant world, a simple battlefield would be a footpath or park while a complex battlefield would be bushland with undergrowth and woody debris. Dr Lymbery said his work could help develop new approaches to habitat management, like adding undergrowth or more environmental complexity back into urbanised environments, to tip the competitive balance back in favour of native ants.

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