英文书摘精选 蚂蚁社会

（单词翻译）

Ants have an amazing ability to communicate with each other and work together to accomplish complex tasks.

Their specialized¹ behavior due to chemical communication is so well developed, in fact, that humans can learn a lot from them about how best to work in teams.

British scientists at the University of Bristol are studying colonies of army ants to understand how they organize themselves and share knowledge. These insects--which come in various sizes--are known for using their bodies as living plugs to cover potholes² on the rough terrain³ between their nest and their prey⁴. When they encounter a hole in their path, they quickly determine which of them is the best fit. The appropriate ant then lies across the gap, allowing the remainder of the group--as many as 200,000 other ants--to step on its back. This important minority of ants optimizes⁵ the food collection of the entire colony by literally⁶ "paving the way" for the others.

The collective behavior that emerges from a group of social insects, such as ants, can be called "swarm⁷ intelligence". Swarm intelligence consists of the self-organization of many individuals that work collectively to find the best solution for a difficult problem.

The concepts of swarm intelligence have been used in a variety of human applications. "Ant colony optimization⁸" has been mimicked⁹ as a routing method that improves the efficiency of cargo¹⁰ transfers on airplanes, and has even become a routing technique for moving data across telecommunications networks more smoothly¹¹. I guess you could say that our daily lives benefit from the tireless work of ants