???? Get to know our publishing house: https://radionaukowe.pl/wydawnictwo ???? Convenient book shopping: https://wydawnictwoRN.pl ???? Become a Patron: https://patronite.pl/radionaukowe ???? Support once: https://suppi.pl/radionaukowe ???? Listen on streaming: https://ffm.bio/radionaukowe ???? Subscribe: / @radionaukowe ???? Website: https://radionaukowe.pl ???? Facebook: / radionaukowe ???? Instagram: / radionaukowe ❌ Twitter: / radionaukowe ???? Visit LAMU: / @letniaakademiamlodychumyslow ???? See more: • Radio Naukowe recommends ???? Contact: [email protected] They clean our cities from organic waste, mix and aerate the soil, they spread plant seeds, control the population of various insects. They often perform very specialized functions, they learn throughout their lives and there are a lot of them in the world: as many as 16 thousand species, and there are about 2.5 million of them for every human. The heroines of today's episode are ants. Igor Siedlecki, a mycomyrmecologist (i.e. a specialist in fungi and ants) from the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw, talks about them. Contrary to appearances, ants are very different. There are species of ants whose workers perform one specific function throughout their lives, to which their body is adapted (e.g. warrior ants with a larger than standard head). However, in species that live in Poland, e.g. the red ant known for its large anthills in the forests, it looks different. With age, the workers gain knowledge (yes, they learn!) and skills, thanks to which they take on increasingly dangerous functions. They start by taking care of the larvae in the safety of the anthill, and eventually start building the anthill, and later still go outside to get food and defend their colleagues. That's right, on the forest paths you only meet wise, experienced, older ants! Studying a species so different from ourselves is difficult and fascinating. "We are only just beginning to understand them better," says my guest. Ants are not guided by the same instinct as most other animals: the need to pass on their individual genes. We don't know why. In the past, researchers believed that it was because they are closer relatives than, for example, humans: all the workers in the anthill are sisters, they have an identical set of genes from their father and half of the genes from their mother. Now we know that it can be more complicated: the queen only collects the genetic material for all the eggs she lays in her life once, but she can collect it from many males at once, and the workers can also lay eggs, although unfertilized (such eggs hatch into males). Perhaps it's simply an evolutionary matter: cooperation produces better reproductive results than competition. In this episode, you'll also hear about why scientists put QR codes on ants and attach tiny stilts to them, under what circumstances ants kill each other, how they breed aphids versus fungi, and what the benefits of emitting ant smell are when you're not an ant. This world is fascinating! WE RECOMMEND OTHER MATERIALS: • Science Radio - All episodes • Physics • Biology • Astronomy • Psychology • Animals • Religion • History • History of life • Geography • Technology • Humans • Culture • Medicine 00:00 Introduction 01:32 Loyalty and fierceness among ants 04:28 The ecological importance of anthills and their inhabitants 08:00 How is an anthill created? - superorganism 16:41 The life cycle of ants - caregiver, warrior and scout 25:42 The end of an ant's life - when do ants eat each other? 30:24 Decision-making and communication in an anthill 36:54 Do ants make mistakes? 41:44 Kin altruism and evolution - sacrificing one's life for the good of the anthill 48:23 Ant species without males 50:23 Ant GPS - how far can an ant go from the nest and not get lost? 51:57 Death of the queen and what next? 57:06 The olfactory world of ants and fungi 1:09:38 QR codes for ants 1:12:02 Are ants clean animals and count steps? 1:16:16 How to understand other species ???? Scientific Radio - turn on knowledge! ???? #RadioNaukowe #KarolinaGłowacka