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  • Featured in Physics
  • Open Access

Nest-Level Phase Transition Drives Synchronized Activity Bursts in Ant Colonies

Michael Napoli

Simon Garnier

Maurizio Porfiri*

  • Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Center for Urban Science and Progress, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, New York, USA

  • Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Center for Urban Science and Progress, Department of Civil, Urban, and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, New York, USA

  • *Contact author: mporfiri@nyu.edu
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PRX Life 4, 033010 – Published 5 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ghnl-p5c1

Abstract

Many natural complex systems exhibit synchronization, characterized by temporal coherence among the dynamics of their units. In ant colonies, synchronization manifests through activity bursts: sudden, sharp spikes of motion by a significant portion of workers throughout the nest, followed by durations of quiescence. These activity bursts were discovered three decades ago and studied since then; yet, the mechanisms that lead to their emergence remain elusive. Here, we present a model of ant activity that integrates both the motion of individuals within the nest and the transitions between behavioral states. By balancing microscopic behaviors in the model, we identify a nest-level phase transition from unsynchronized to synchronized activity and draw several connections between model predictions and empirical observations in the literature. Our analysis begets two key insights: (i) activity bursts emerge as a balance between the responsiveness of the colony to the first ant that activates and the ability of the colony to completely deactivate before the onset of the next burst, and (ii) the timescale of the motion of individuals through the nest is faster than that of the burst, suggesting that ants operate in a high-speed interaction regime where new behaviors are near-instantaneously transferred through the nest. We relate these findings to the broader literature on synchronization in complex systems, highlighting the need for periods of quiescence followed by the rapid communication of a new behavior through a population of connected units.

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Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Focus

Phase Transition in Ant Colonies

Published 5 August, 2026

Two types of ant colonies—one that experiences sudden bursts of activity and one that doesn’t—exemplify two distinct phases of collective behavior.

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PRX Life 4, 033010– Published 5 August, 2026
  • Received 19 December 2025
  • Accepted 29 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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