What do you think?
Rate this book
Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior
How do ant colonies get anything done, when no one is in charge? An ant colony operates without a central control or hierarchy, and no ant directs another. Instead, ants decide what to do based on the rate, rhythm, and pattern of individual encounters and interactions--resulting in a dynamic network that coordinates the functions of the colony. Ant Encounters provides a revealing and accessible look into ant behavior from this complex systems perspective.
Focusing on the moment-to-moment behavior of ant colonies, Deborah Gordon investigates the role of interaction networks in regulating colony behavior and relations among ant colonies. She shows how ant behavior within and between colonies arises from local interactions of individuals, and how interaction networks develop as a colony grows older and larger. The more rapidly ants react to their encounters, the more sensitively the entire colony responds to changing conditions. Gordon explores whether such reactive networks help a colony to survive and reproduce, how natural selection shapes colony networks, and how these structures compare to other analogous complex systems.
Ant Encounters sheds light on the organizational behavior, ecology, and evolution of these diverse and ubiquitous social insects.
Focusing on the moment-to-moment behavior of ant colonies, Deborah Gordon investigates the role of interaction networks in regulating colony behavior and relations among ant colonies. She shows how ant behavior within and between colonies arises from local interactions of individuals, and how interaction networks develop as a colony grows older and larger. The more rapidly ants react to their encounters, the more sensitively the entire colony responds to changing conditions. Gordon explores whether such reactive networks help a colony to survive and reproduce, how natural selection shapes colony networks, and how these structures compare to other analogous complex systems.
Ant Encounters sheds light on the organizational behavior, ecology, and evolution of these diverse and ubiquitous social insects.
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
25 people are currently reading
365 people want to read
About the author
Deborah M. Gordon
5 books5 followersDeborah M. Gordon is an American biologist best known for her impactful research in the behavioral ecology of ants and her studies on the operations of ant colonies without a central control. In addition to overseeing The Gordon Lab, she is currently a Professor of Biology at Stanford University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
April 6, 2018
Ok so I learnt quite a bit about ANTS, they live through interactions with each other, navigate their lives through chemical cues, are amazingly intelligent and wise with what they have, help each other navigate the world, work as a team, no is blamed, everyone does something, they can't really see, if someone becomes lazy other workers move in to perform the task, no one ant knows what they are meant to do, it is with interaction and contact with other ants that they start performing tasks like foraging for food, patrolling and leaving chemical cues for the forages to follow, protecting the nest, processing the food etc. It astonished me how such creatures can work part of a network that performs tasks for the sake of their COLONY's survival. Even though I sorta became disinterested in this, i have a new profound respect for the ants.
ANTS ARE Amazing!! :( (T_T)
ANTS ARE Amazing!! :( (T_T)
December 31, 2019
This is a very special re-read. Anyone creeping my Goodreads reviews knows I've got the complexity science bug bad, and this is where it all began - I learned about the Santa Fe Institute through this book. I was very excited to come back to this book now that I have the background to appreciate it a little better.
It still holds up as well as I remember! The key insight that ant colonies are largely governed by local interactions, rather than ants specializing into different "castes" as the popular fiction goes, is really illuminating. Gordon has put the time in - she once says, not immodestly, that she's probably spent more time looking at ants than anyone else in the world - and that expertise shines through again and again. Ants are interesting because they show how much little local information you need to get really tricky complex behavior.
But for all that this book got me to start looking at complexity generally, I was surprised by how much it really was ant-specific. Gordon has her subject area, and she's sticking to it. This isn't a criticism of her - it's certainly better than the reverse, and she's extremely diligent (maybe more than any author I've read) about noting what study areas deserve further focus. But when the observations are of such a high quality, with so many potential avenues for confusion identified and controlled for, I do wish there was a bit more extrapolation of general principles.
Still - that just means the work is for us readers. I recommend this to anyone interested in seeing real-world complexity from relatively simple agents. Just know coming in that Gordon is here to talk about ants and what they do, no more and no less.
It still holds up as well as I remember! The key insight that ant colonies are largely governed by local interactions, rather than ants specializing into different "castes" as the popular fiction goes, is really illuminating. Gordon has put the time in - she once says, not immodestly, that she's probably spent more time looking at ants than anyone else in the world - and that expertise shines through again and again. Ants are interesting because they show how much little local information you need to get really tricky complex behavior.
But for all that this book got me to start looking at complexity generally, I was surprised by how much it really was ant-specific. Gordon has her subject area, and she's sticking to it. This isn't a criticism of her - it's certainly better than the reverse, and she's extremely diligent (maybe more than any author I've read) about noting what study areas deserve further focus. But when the observations are of such a high quality, with so many potential avenues for confusion identified and controlled for, I do wish there was a bit more extrapolation of general principles.
Still - that just means the work is for us readers. I recommend this to anyone interested in seeing real-world complexity from relatively simple agents. Just know coming in that Gordon is here to talk about ants and what they do, no more and no less.
Read
November 16, 2022A primer, really, first and foremost. The motivating force was a simultaneous balancing of a strong reductionist streak – Gordon was ruthless in her attacks against those who postulate even day-long memories to ants – and a respect for irreducible complexity. Both hallmarks of systems thinking proper.
The thing I found most interesting, though, was the initial backclash Gordon mentioned she faced from reviewers on ants' processing of interaction frequency data. Such capacities, the journal reviewers thought, could never be found in creatures like ants. Showing how the tracking of complex parametres like that from rather simple input-conditions is all these approaches should be about. I was carried through a lot of this by being an ant fanboy, but I did feel as if the exposition stayed on a rather superficial level. I did enjoy the while package in any case!
The thing I found most interesting, though, was the initial backclash Gordon mentioned she faced from reviewers on ants' processing of interaction frequency data. Such capacities, the journal reviewers thought, could never be found in creatures like ants. Showing how the tracking of complex parametres like that from rather simple input-conditions is all these approaches should be about. I was carried through a lot of this by being an ant fanboy, but I did feel as if the exposition stayed on a rather superficial level. I did enjoy the while package in any case!
April 14, 2022
Gordon's work on ant colonies provides a tractable and easily understandable way in to both systems thinking and understanding complexity. By using ants and ant colonies as the object of analysis, Gordon asks questions that all systems analysts would. From exploring how actors sense and respond to their environment, to inquiring as to how the system self-regulates behaviour such as foraging for food, this work is grounded firmly in science, while being clear about what answers we still have not discovered.
My key critique of this work is that the last chapter on modelling feels undone; I would really have liked to see systems diagrams of the phenomena visualised.
My key critique of this work is that the last chapter on modelling feels undone; I would really have liked to see systems diagrams of the phenomena visualised.
December 24, 2018
Gordon’s analysis of ant interaction networks takes a different approach to biology/ecology writing than I’ve seen before. Included in the series Primers in Complex Systems, the book describes ant colonies in a mathematical way while maintaining some of the narrative style found in more typical books on animal behavior. An incredibly interesting and not-too-long read, though I wish more time had been spent comparing ant networks to other kinds of networks. The ending was also fairly abrupt.
May 9, 2024
The book is very well writen, it presents ideas, then follows to give arguments or examples for that matter, which makes it very readable. Also, it gives a lot of facts about ants. But, as the book is part of the series Primers in Complex Systems, I hoped the text would clarify the relation between this facts and concepts or ideas from complexity theory, at least it was not clear to me which concepts or ideas are from there and which ones do not. Finally, the last section is redundant and could be summarized in just a few words, "There is no general model for ant behavior, due to the diversity and richness of ant species". No development of this idea is necessary again.
July 8, 2024
Offering an interesting critique of established ideas, this slim volume surveys numerous examples to argue that the behaviour of ant colonies arises from interactions between individuals. Read my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2024...
July 12, 2021
Fascinating! If you love hearing how very complex and adaptive systems can emerge from simple rules, this book is for you. And really, isn't that the entire world?
If, on the other hand, you're not interested in either ants or emergent systems, this one isn't for you :)
If, on the other hand, you're not interested in either ants or emergent systems, this one isn't for you :)
January 25, 2018
A very interesting introduction to ants, I have developed a respect for ants after reading this book. There were so many assumptions that have been totally debunked in my mind ants truly are amazing.
February 2, 2019
A good introductory read into ant behaviour. Challenging many notions that some people have regarding these animals (yes they are animals).
February 9, 2019
A very well-written book about what is known by science about ants. It is fascinating to see how interactions on the individual level scale up to colony intelligence. Great work, a page-turner.
March 19, 2019
A wonderful overview of complex systems from the perspective of ant colonies
May 18, 2021
I will never look at ants the same way again. Amazing!
March 21, 2017
Exciting description of creatures we take for granted, and an interesting expose of the lack of individualism in their colonies. Great, quick read with just enough science. Well documented and researched.
June 18, 2016
“The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh enrichment.” ~ Johannes Kepler
This is the first book that I immediately began rereading as soon as I finished it. At first approach to this book I had the opinion that the networks that ants live in resembled something like spontaneous order. This would seem to be a simplification on my part, at least in my opinion. I don’t really care whether or not anthropomorphism is bad, I’m no biologist but the networks ants employ seems to be a much different form of complexity than that which humans employ.
These syndicates operate more like a distributed process than spontaneous order, at least in the way that Adam Smith described it to my understanding. As a consequence of this realization, you obtain the understanding that while being non-hierarchical that there is no free will among individuals. Changes in roles among workers is merely a transition opposed upon them by their environment as the needs of the colony shifts to needing one role over the other.
Ants participate in their network as a function where they happen to be, based on brief interactions of smell based on the frequency of their kin they interact with. If they don’t interact with enough of a certain type of worker, they may change roles. This is what Deborah has seen in her observation of harvester ants and it is not intuitive but important.The book also focuses on the interaction between nests with competing nests, or how I like to think of it, networks with other networks. Networks compete and some networks operate more efficiently than others.
If you’re interested in biological systems or computing there are many insights in this small book and I highly suggest taking notes on the redundancies observed in the networks.
“If I could measure one behavioral trait for every ant species, it would be the rhythm of interactions. We could put them all together to hear the whole symphony of ant diversity, with the percussion from the opportunistic and touchy ants of the tropics, the basso ostinato of the sedate red wood ants as they move up and down the same trees decade after decade, the shifting melodies of the leaf-cutter ants who flow into trees and strip them bare, and the rare grace notes of the ponerines that meet briefly as each one stalks its prey.” ~ Deborah Gordon
This is the first book that I immediately began rereading as soon as I finished it. At first approach to this book I had the opinion that the networks that ants live in resembled something like spontaneous order. This would seem to be a simplification on my part, at least in my opinion. I don’t really care whether or not anthropomorphism is bad, I’m no biologist but the networks ants employ seems to be a much different form of complexity than that which humans employ.
These syndicates operate more like a distributed process than spontaneous order, at least in the way that Adam Smith described it to my understanding. As a consequence of this realization, you obtain the understanding that while being non-hierarchical that there is no free will among individuals. Changes in roles among workers is merely a transition opposed upon them by their environment as the needs of the colony shifts to needing one role over the other.
Ants participate in their network as a function where they happen to be, based on brief interactions of smell based on the frequency of their kin they interact with. If they don’t interact with enough of a certain type of worker, they may change roles. This is what Deborah has seen in her observation of harvester ants and it is not intuitive but important.The book also focuses on the interaction between nests with competing nests, or how I like to think of it, networks with other networks. Networks compete and some networks operate more efficiently than others.
If you’re interested in biological systems or computing there are many insights in this small book and I highly suggest taking notes on the redundancies observed in the networks.
“If I could measure one behavioral trait for every ant species, it would be the rhythm of interactions. We could put them all together to hear the whole symphony of ant diversity, with the percussion from the opportunistic and touchy ants of the tropics, the basso ostinato of the sedate red wood ants as they move up and down the same trees decade after decade, the shifting melodies of the leaf-cutter ants who flow into trees and strip them bare, and the rare grace notes of the ponerines that meet briefly as each one stalks its prey.” ~ Deborah Gordon
February 2, 2012
An extremely lucid elaboration about the marvels of ant behaviour. Professor Gordan brilliantly explains the nuances of ant behaviour with a complex systems perspective and she does it with extraordinary simplicity. The book will both remove a lot of precocieved notions about ants as portrayed in popular culture as well as fill the reader with a very sound introductory knowledge base about the intricacies of the marvel that these small creatures are.
September 2, 2018
States some interesting details about ant networks but not in a very engaging way.
There are many neat factoids you can learn from this, like how ants determine whether or not to forage based on their communication with other ants. However it isn't weaved into good story, despite the author's occasional attempts to walk the reader through their research and the process of discovery.
There are many neat factoids you can learn from this, like how ants determine whether or not to forage based on their communication with other ants. However it isn't weaved into good story, despite the author's occasional attempts to walk the reader through their research and the process of discovery.
July 14, 2015
Very interesting book. I learned a lot about ants, both as individuals and as a colony. My only issue is the very repetitive nature of the book. 4 pages would explain a scenario multiple times that was sufficiently explained in one paragraph. All in all though, if you're interested in ants or insect colonies, I'd suggest giving this a read.
July 3, 2015
I now enjoy watching ants, and can entertain myself in nearly any outdoor location by observing them. This book provides a portal into the ant world, giving us enough information to make it interesting, and outlining a few of many mysteries that remain.
November 7, 2018
Suvise naucno, nedovoljno interesantno
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews