I completely agree with Michael Rust’s opinion from the article.
The two hypotheses the authors are planning to study next are:
- The ants are using a completely new and unknown feedback mechanism (i.e. negative chemical marker).
- The ants are learning that specific food source is making them sick and deciding to avoid it (deciding being the operative word).
Truthfully, Rust’s explanation is much simpler and is already supported by our current understanding of ants and ant behavior. The expected behavior can be explained and modeled algorithmically (i.e. emergent algorithms and swarm intelligence) via otherwise simple mechanisms and concepts – ones that we already know exist in ant colonies because the fundamental mathematics principles are inspired by the behavior of eusocial insects.
I would assume that using a product whose active ingredient has a longer delay between ingestion and the start of symptoms or which did not induce any symptoms at all would side step the avoidance issue to varying degrees. In practice, if I were having trouble with sugar eating ants not being controlled by products containing boric acid, I would switch to or augment with a product that has a different mode of action, such as an insect growth regulator.