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THE INJURY TEST OF MEMORY. “For the mound to serve its respiratory function, the colony must have knowledge, in some form, of how the mound is structured. That the colony has such knowledge is revealed dramatically by the response to mound injury, such as a breach of the mound surface by a soil auger. This initiates an immediate repair program that plugs the damaged mound, usually in less than a day, and often within a few hours of the injury. This is followed by an extended process of remodeling that, over periods that can span years, restores the damaged part of the mound to its form and functionality prior to the injury.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

HEREDITARY MEMORY, “For the workers, therefore, the environment they inhabit and interpret is both constructed by them, and is a hereditary legacy of past generations of workers. Indeed, this legacy need not be limited to the lifespan of a single colony: a small proportion of abandoned nests are re-colonized, so that elements of the mound built by a past generation can be passed on to a future one. This has interesting implications for the nature of hereditary memory.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn