Credit: Giulio FacchiniFor bring out their laboratory experiment on termites of the species Coptotermes gestroi (originally from South Asia, however which has spread to the east coast of the United States), the scientists developed little arenas with synthetic structures of various heights and shape by utilizing wet clay.They then gathered small populations of termites from a bigger colony and measured their building behavior in action to these structures by video-tracking the activity of all termites in the population, while concurrently characterizing the modifications in the 3D structure. Credit: Giulio FacchiniAnother hypothesis was that termites may be able to sense the curvature of the structure substrate, considering that some previous modelling had shown that continuously including pellets at the places of greatest curvature is sufficient to produce very intricate structures that resemble the termite nests of some species. “In our simulations, we observed that small heterogeneities of the surface area have higher curvature than the flat surrounding substrate and so they are expanded to form a pillar, the pointed extremities of pillars, in turn, bring in even more depositions of structure material and continue to grow up until they split or combine with another pillar, and so on; extremely complicated structures can be formed with this easy guideline,” says Giulio Facchini, very first author of the study and researcher at the CNRS Institut Matière et Systèmes Complexes in Paris, France.In fact, when the termites were faced with the artificial stimuli provided in the experiments, they always chose to construct at the locations of highest curvature, including pellets at the top of the pillars (individually of their height), and when a little wall stimulus was provided, they most frequently kept including pellets at the two corners of the wall, the two points where the curvature reaches its maximum.Understanding Termite Sensory CapabilitiesThe problem is: how could termites so reliably sense the curvature of the structures that they were developing? “In our experiments, nest intricacy emerges from simply one easy system: termites just need to add pellets of product depending on the local humidity, however the pellets that they add in turn alter all the pattern of evaporation and humidity, causing other termites to construct at a various place, and so on, until really complicated structures are produced.
Credit: Giulio FacchiniFor bring out their lab experiment on termites of the species Coptotermes gestroi (initially from South Asia, however which has actually spread to the east coast of the United States), the researchers created small arenas with synthetic structures of different heights and shape by utilizing wet clay.They then gathered little populations of termites from a bigger colony and quantified their structure habits in action to these structures by video-tracking the activity of all termites in the population, while concurrently characterizing the changes in the 3D structure. Credit: Giulio FacchiniAnother hypothesis was that termites might be able to notice the curvature of the building substrate, because some previous modelling had shown that constantly including pellets at the locations of highest curvature is enough to produce very complicated structures that look like the termite nests of some types. “In our simulations, we observed that small heterogeneities of the surface have higher curvature than the flat surrounding substrate and so they are broadened to form a pillar, the pointed extremities of pillars, in turn, attract further depositions of building material and continue to grow up until they split or combine with another pillar, and so on; very complicated structures can be formed with this easy rule,” states Giulio Facchini, first author of the study and researcher at the CNRS Institut Matière et Systèmes Complexes in Paris, France.In truth, when the termites were confronted with the artificial stimuli provided in the experiments, they constantly chose to construct at the locations of highest curvature, including pellets at the top of the pillars (independently of their height), and when a little wall stimulus was provided, they most often kept including pellets at the 2 corners of the wall, the two points where the curvature reaches its maximum.Understanding Termite Sensory CapabilitiesThe issue is: how could termites so dependably sense the curvature of the structures that they were developing?