In ant nervous systems, gene expression may drive rescue behavior

Why do some ants help nestmates in distress while others don't? A research team from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and Tel Aviv University addressed this question in a new study. The researchers examined worker ants of the species Cataglyphis niger, some of which had shown rescue behavior while others had not. The results, recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, suggest that the key difference lies not in body size, morphology or the animals' energy reserves, but in gene activity in the nervous system.