Despite myriad challenges, clinicians see room for progress.
Image credit: Shutterstock/David Tadevosian.
New Research In
Physical Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Biological Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Edited by Simon A. Levin, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved November 16, 2020 (received for review April 16, 2020)
Significance
Termite nests are a remarkable example of functional self-organization that show how structure and function emerge on multiple length and time scales in ecophysiology. To understand the process by which this arises, we document the labyrinthine architecture within the subterranean nests of the African termite Apicotermes lamani and develop a simple mathematical model that relies on the physical and biological interactions between termites, pheromones, and mud in the nest. Our model explains the formation of parallel floors connected by linear and helical ramps, consistent with observations of real nests. In describing this multiagent system, we elucidate principles of physical and behavioral coupling with relevance to swarm intelligence and architectural design.
Abstract
The termite nest is one of the architectural wonders of the living world, built by the collective action of workers in a colony. Each nest has several characteristic structural motifs that allow for efficient ventilation, cooling, and traversal. We use tomography to quantify the nest architecture of the African termite Apicotermes lamani, consisting of regularly spaced floors connected by scattered linear and helicoidal ramps. To understand how these elaborate structures are built and arranged, we formulate a minimal model for the spatiotemporal evolution of three hydrodynamic fields—mud, termites, and pheromones—linking environmental physics to collective building behavior using simple local rules based on experimental observations. We find that floors and ramps emerge as solutions of the governing equations, with statistics consistent with observations of A. lamani nests. Our study demonstrates how a local self-reinforcing biotectonic scheme is capable of generating an architecture that is simultaneously adaptable and functional, and likely to be relevant for a range of other animal-built structures.
Footnotes
- ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: lmahadev{at}g.harvard.edu.
Author contributions: A.H., G.T., and L.M. designed research; A.H. and L.M. performed research; A.H., L.G., C.J., G.T., and L.M. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; A.H., L.G., C.J., and L.M. analyzed data; and A.H., G.T., and L.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2006985118/-/DCSupplemental.
Data Availability.
The HTML three-dimensional images and Datasets S1 and S2 have been deposited in Harvard Dataverse (https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Z1GWTI) (32).
Published under the PNAS license.
References
Log in using your username and password
Log in through your institution
You may be able to gain access using your login credentials for your institution. Contact your library if you do not have a username and password.
If your organization uses OpenAthens, you can log in using your OpenAthens username and password. To check if your institution is supported, please see this list. Contact your library for more details.
Purchase access
You may purchase access to this article. This will require you to create an account if you don't already have one.
Self-organized biotectonics of termite nests
Sign up for Article Alerts
Article Classifications
- Physical Sciences
- Biophysics and Computational Biology
- Biological Sciences
- Biophysics and Computational Biology
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Better explicating the strengths and shortcomings of these models will help refine projections and improve transparency in the years ahead.
Image credit: Witsawat.S.
Using CRISPR, researchers showed that a region some used to label “junk DNA” has a major role in a rare genetic disorder.
Image credit: Nathan Devery.
Mara Reed and Michael Manga explore why Yellowstone's Steamboat Geyser resumed erupting in 2018.
A study demonstrates how two enzymes—MHETase and PETase—work synergistically to depolymerize the plastic pollutant PET.
Image credit: Aaron McGeehan (artist).