Nigel R. Franks (born 21 August 1956) is an English emeritus professor of

Animal Behaviour Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behavior, behaviour of non-human animals. It has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithology, ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

and

Ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

. He obtained a BSc and PhD in biology at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. After receiving his BSc in 1977 he began his PhD, during which he spent two years doing field work in Panama on army ants with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He was awarded the Thomas Henry Huxley Award in 1980 from the Zoological Society of London for the best British PhD in Zoology. He then received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851 allowing him to undertake postdoctoral work under Edward O. Wilson at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

before becoming a lecturer at the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

in 1982, later being promoted to full professor in 1995. He moved to the

in 2001. He is renowned for his studies of collective animal behaviour, particularly of

ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...

colonies. His Ant Lab at Bristol pioneered the use of Temnothorax (

Temnothorax albipennis ''Temnothorax albipennis'', the rock ant is a species of small ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It occurs in Europe and builds simple nests in rock crevices. Description This species has the typical ant body pattern of head, mesosoma and metas ...

) as a model ant species for the study of collective

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

and

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...

. In a 2009 profile in

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

he discusses his pioneering use of radio-frequency identification tags (RFID) glued to the backs of each ant for tracking individuals in their society. His book ''Social evolution in ants'' with Andrew Bourke was an important contribution to the understanding of

kin selection Kin selection is a process whereby natural selection favours a trait due to its positive effects on the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even when at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin selection can lead ...

theory and sex ratio theory with respect to social evolution in insects, while his co-authored book ''Self-organization in biological systems'' has been cited well over 3000 times

ants have been observed teaching each other through a process known as

tandem running Tandem running is a pair movement coordination observed in ants and termites. In ants, tandem running is used for social learning, by which one ant leads another native ant from the nest to the food source it has found. Tandem running is also use ...

. An experienced forager leads a naive nest-mate to a newly discovered resource such as food or an empty nest site. The follower obtains knowledge of the route by following in the footsteps of the tutor, maintaining contact with its antennae. Both leader and follower are aware of the progress made by the other with the leader slowing when the follower lags and speeding up when the follower gets too close. Depending on how far away a new resource is, colonies will modulate the number of tandem runs that they perform, with a greater number of tandem runs occurring when the desired resource is more distant. Furthermore, the relative contribution that workers make to this process differs widely among individuals, with certain ants attempting many more tandem runs than others.

References

1956 births Living people Ethologists Alumni of the University of Leeds Academics of the University of Bath Academics of the University of Bristol {{UK-academic-bio-stub