Nest Structurally Reinforced

black ants crawl on an aphid colony on a plant

Biological Strategy

Jet ant

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Image: Line Sabroe / Flickr / Some rights reserved

Physically Assemble Structure

Living systems use physical materials to create structures to serve as protection, insulation, and other purposes. These structures can be internal (within or attached to the system itself), such as cell membranes, shells, and fur. They can also be external (detached), such as nests, burrows, cocoons, or webs. Because physical materials are limited and the energy required to gather and create new structures is costly, living systems must use both conservatively. Therefore, they optimize the structures’ size, weight, and density. For example, weaver birds use two types of vegetation to create their nests: strong, a few stiff fibers and numerous thin fibers. Combined, they make a strong, yet flexible, nest. An example of an internal structure is a bird’s bone. The bone is comprised of a mineral matrix assembled to create strong cross-supports and a tubular outer surface filled with air to minimize weight.

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Insects

Class Insecta (“an insect”): Flies, ants, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, dragonflies

Insects are the most abundant arthropods—they make up 90% of the animals in the phylum. They’re found everywhere on earth except the deep ocean, and scientists estimate there are millions of insects not yet described. Most live on land, but many live in freshwater or saltwater marshes for part of their life cycles. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head, which has specialized mouthparts, a thorax, which has jointed legs, and an abdomen. They have well-developed nervous and sensory systems, and are the only invertebrate that can fly, thanks to their lightweight exoskeletons and small size.

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The carton nests of jet ants are reinforced by the hyphae of resident fungi.

Introduction

Ants are some of the most successful animals on the planet. They’re found in every continent except Antarctica, and there are more than 12,000 species. They’re hard workers, and they live in complex societies with divisions of labor. They’re also great architects.

The Strategy

One species of ant, the jet ant (Lasius fuliginosus), builds its nests out of paper reinforced with the hyphae of resident fungi. The jet ant collects wood particles and impregnates them with a sugar solution, which creates a nutritive substance for the fungi. As the fungi grow, the thread-like hyphae that make up their mycelium bind the particles together, reinforcing the wall materials the ants have built up.

The Potential

Humans use many materials to construct buildings, and have even begun growing fungi’s mycelia in molds to produce building blocks and finished products. By mimicking the jet ants’ style of “additive manufacturing”, what kind of new structures could be framed and grown in place, made from locally available materials and reinforced by fungi?

Last Updated October 14, 2022

References

“Three animals, for instance, have independently invented the making of paper … Ants have developed yet another method of building carton nests; the jet ant (Lasius fuliginosus) impregnates wood particles with a sugar solution, which creates a nutritive substance for its cultivation of fungi, whose hyphae bind the particle together, thus reinforcing the nest structure; this increases the structural strength of the house. (Pallasmaa 1995:20)”

Book

Animal Architecture

22/04/2014 | Ingo Arndt

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