Ant behavioral maturation is mediated by a stochastic transition between two fundamental states

The remarkable ecological success of social insects is often attributed to their advanced division of labour, which is closely associated with temporal polyethism in which workers transition between different tasks as they age. Young nurses are typically found deep within the nest where they tend to the queen and the brood, whereas older foragers are found near the entrance and outside the nest. However, the individual-level maturation dynamics remain poorly understood because following individuals over relevant timescales is difficult, hence previous experimental studies used same-age cohort designs. To address this, we used an automated tracking system to follow >500 individuals over >100 days, and constructed networks of physical contacts to provide a continuous measure of worker social maturity. These analyses revealed that most workers occupied one of two steady-states, namely a low-maturity nurse state and a high-maturity forager state, with the remaining workers rapidly tra...