Foraging effectiveness of the altruistic plugging behavior of the army ants

E.burchellii is a type of new world army ant, who is living in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. He has a unique behavior that the members of the species plug potholes by putting their own bodies so that other members can step on them and cross the potholes in the path between the nest and the food. According to a previous study, this behavior allows members of a colony to cross potholes at a higher speed. But it is unclear that this behavior provides effective foraging. In this study, firstly, we develop the simulator of the behavior of the army ants and secondly, we evaluate the effectiveness of the plugging behavior with the developed simulator. As a result, we have developed a simulator, which qualitatively well corresponds to the behavior of the real army ants and It has been found that this plugging behavior yields effective foraging.