How did ant colonies evolve?

Question

How did ants, with not too much brain power, eventually figure out how to work in harmony as a colony? This, of course, could apply to other insects/animals.

Answer 1

It is not evolution, it is instinct. They already knew what to do.

Answer 2

Essentially, an ant has four simple behaviours:

Wander: run around aimlessly in search for food

Follow: if a pheromone trail is encountered [the scent the queen releases as an order], follow it to the food

Harvest: if food is nearby, collect it

Hoard: when carrying food, head straight home leaving a trail of scent

there are many different kinds of ants, like in the

real world. They all have specific jobs they must do for the good

welfare of the rest of the colony. They also live in many colonies.

Listed below are the kinds of ants in SimAnt.

Yellow Ant – who you are controlling. You can be any ant in

SimAnt, a Soldier, a Worker, a Queen, a female; you can even be the

Spider! Every ant, at your command, will follow you wherever you take

them, even into battle with the red ants.

Workers – just what they sound like, they work. Workers are the

primary source of labor in the colony. They mainly forage for food in

the outside world, and help around inside the colony. Workers are the

same things as Soldiers, only smaller, therefore not requiring as much

food to keep healthy.

Soldiers – Soldier ants are worker ants, only larger. This helps

when in ant combat with red ants or the Spider, but it is also a

hindrance. Soldiers require the most food of all ants, therefore

increasing the amount of food you must have at any given time. But they more than earn their keep for it, because they fight the red ants,

battle the Spider, tangle with the Ant Lions, and just about fight

anything and everything that comes along. Cool.

Queens – queen ants are the prized possession in SimAnt. If a

queen dies one way or another, the game is lost. You must then transfer to another patch, if you have one. If not, you have lost the game. But you can prevent this, by manipulating the game and its features so that the queen goes deeper and deeper into the ground so that it is impossible for the red ants to find her. Queens are very expensive to feed and care for, and all they do is lay eggs, so do not create queens unless you have to.

New Queens – all new queens are are fertile females. Their sole

purpose in life is to found new ant colonies in and around other

patches of the Yard and House. Since they are very expensive to care

for and feed, you should not have that many until you are rich with

food in your colony to feed and care for them.

Males – males are kind of like new queens; their sole purpose in

life is to fertilize new queens. Males are big and lazy, and don't do

anything except fertilize new queens, so don't make any unless you have to or are rich in food.

All ants are created via the Caste Control menu, a button on the

toolbar that allows you to set the amount of all ants produced to be

certain types. Pretty simple, once you get to know it.

Answer 3

Since life began on this planet, all animals were born with and instinct.  I don't think anyone really knows how or why this happens but it does.  I just saw a special on Animal Planet last night where a colony of ants invaded another infereior colony of ants,  the queen led the group, fought with the other ants and pretended to be dead.  In the meantime, while the inferior colony thought she was dead, they went on to attack the invaders.  She in turn got up and went into the nest, rolled in their scent so the other ants would think she was their queen.  They mated with her and her offspring became slaves to her.  The whole purpose was to enslave the lesser ant to do the dirty work, so to speak.  It was weird, but it worked.  So who knows what drives these creatures to do what they do.  It has to be ingrained in their brain.  that's the best I can do.  I really did see this, honest.

Answer 4

This is a complicated subject with a voluminous amount of literature. The theory of kin selection (inclusive fitness) is probably the best accepted model but there are several competing theories

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~jm703496/es-a...

http://currents.ucsc.edu/05-06/04-24/cen...

http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/~barrylab/c...