212 - Deborah Gordon: Ants, Myrmecology, and Collective Behavior

Patreon: https://bit.ly/3v8OhY7

Deborah Gordon is Professor of Biology at Stanford University. She is a myrmecologist—an entomologist who studies ants—focusing on how complex behavior emerges from ant colonies, which have no central control. In this episode, Deborah and Robinson discuss some of the distinctive features of ants, how pheromones help to determine their behavior, examples of fascinating ant species, collective ant behavior, and the life cycle of an ant colony. For more of Deborah’s work on collective behavior, check out her book The Ecology of Collective Behavior (Princeton, 2023).

The Gordon Lab: https://web.stanford.edu/~dmgordon/

Ants at Work: https://a.co/d/7bpokYU

The Ecology of Collective Behavior: https://a.co/d/1bBT1h7

OUTLINE
00:00 Introduction
02:33 Ants and Embryology
05:29 General Features of Ants
13:14 Some Fascinating Ant Species
28:20 Pheromones and Ant Behavior
38:17 Ant Slavery
41:30 Collective Ant Behavior
47:04 A Colony’s Life Cycle
59:01 Revisiting Embryology

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, and everyone in-between. 

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