Ant Intelligence

Humans are fascinated by ants. One reason for this is how irritating they can be; an anthill near your home or a swarm of ants at your picnic can create a host of unpleasant problems, from inconveniences to real damage to your food and health. The other reason we’re so fascinated by ants is that they are social animals whose large group interactions may remind us of our own. Individuals working on artificial intelligence have used the concept of ant swarm intelligence in a lot of pioneering works, and algorithms inspired by ants are so prevalent in computer programming that a whole classification of them are known as “ant colony optimization algorithms”. How smart are ants, and what makes them so smart?

For years, we thought the biggest contributor to ant intelligence is the size and complexity of the swarm, a type of “hive mind” style intelligence that grows as more individuals contribute to the colony. In this conception, ants aren’t dissimilar to humans using the Internet; alone, there’s substantially less knowledge available than together, but collectively, large swaths of otherwise inaccessible knowledge come into arm’s reach. Following this conception of ants, the larger the colony is, the more intelligent the swarm should be. This reasoning would lead us to believe that Argentine ants are the most intelligent; these ants have a colony so large it can be described as a mega-colony spanning the world.

Ant swarms communicate through a wide variety of means, most commonly through pheromones. Pheromones are scents that are used primarily for identification; ants can detect if a member is from their own colony, their nest, another nest, or another colony altogether. They can also use pheromones to identify queens. Ants also use social hierarchy in order to determine value; when looking at a new source of food or a new location for a potential nest, more experienced workers seem to have more importance in evaluating the risks and rewards of the new location or food.

As it turns out, individual ants are actually far more intelligent than we originally gave them credit for. They have incredibly complex navigational abilities, that include cues derived from the position of the sun, the counting of their steps, slopes, odors and more. Where they differ from humans is that while we might put all of these things together (minus perhaps the odors) into a cognitive map, ants use all of these modules separately without creating a cohesive whole. Fascinating stuff!

Ants will continue to fascinate us so long as we continue to co-exist, and their vital role in our ecosystem means that will be for a long time. That being said, it’s best to admire ants from afar. When they invade your home, it can lead to a lot of problems, and that’s where insect control Winnipeg can trust comes in. We employ a wide variety of different techniques in order to get rid of ant infestations in your home, and to keep the ants away for a good, long time.

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source https://glpestcontrol.ca/ant-intelligence/

A Pesky Primer

We’ve worked hard to provide pest control Winnipeg can trust. The history of pest control is probably as long as the history of humans, and a lot of different techniques have been developed to limit the impact of pests on human activities. The ways of controlling pests differ based on the kinds of pest you’re looking to control, where they’re located, and what you’re trying to protect. To dive into all of this, it’s important to have an understanding of what pests are.

Pests are any species detrimental to humans. With this broad categorization, plants that we would call weeds can be considered pests, but there’s often a divide; detrimental flora are considered weeds, and detrimental fauna are pests. There are a lot of different factors that can make pests a nuisance, but there are generally three elements that impact the severity of pests: diet, reproduction and disease. Species that will eat any human food can be very harmful to a home, and those that eat specific foods can be harmful to agriculture and other resource gathering activities. Species that reproduce quickly spiral out of control rapidly. Species that carry disease are likely to cause widespread illness. Combine all three together and you have a very serious pest problem; mice in your home is one example of a pest that meets all three criteria.

There are a variety of methods for dealing with pests. The simplest one is tolerance; let the pests remain and suffer the consequences. While this is simple, it’s by no means recommended, as there can be severe and lasting consequences to the infestation. Deterrence and management are the two most commonly used techniques; quite simply, these techniques involve getting existing pests away from human activity, and creating barriers to new pests moving in. The most drastic form of pest management is eradication, which has fallen out of favour due to potential damages to the ecosystem; this involves systematically eliminating a pest species. There is still some potential for eliminating pests using widespread genetic alterations; check out this article on mosquitos and CRISPR for some of the potentially world-changing, ethically divisive work.

Options for pest management are varied, and depend on which pest is being controlled. For rodents, traps can be used in order to get rid of the pest without poisoning them, as poison traps can have unintended consequences. For insects, a variety of traps, including traps baited with pheromones, can be used. Larger-scale infestations may require fumigation, a practice in which the area is air-sealed and insecticides are applied.

Techniques for prevention depend on the area they’re being used; elevated rafters, sealed foodstuffs, and even sonic nets can be employed in order to reduce the impact of pests on your home or business. The use of preventive techniques varies pretty drastically depending on what we’re trying to protect. All this to say, if you’ve got pests you need to manage and deter, there’s pest control out there for you; we humans have been at this for millenia!

 

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source https://glpestcontrol.ca/a-pesky-primer/