Several features in social insects, particularly in ants, make the behavioral organization of territoriality considerably more complex than that of solitary animals. The establishment and maintenance of territories are based on a division of labor and a complex communication system.

The analyses of territorial strategies in ants comprise the study of the design and spatiotemporal structure of the territory, as well as the social mechanisms through which the insect society pursues its territorial strategy.

The geometric and behavioral organization of the absolute territories of the African weaver ants (Oecophylla longinoda) and harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex), and of the “spatiotemporal territories” of honey ants (Myrmecocystus mimicus) are described, and simple cost-benefit models are developed to illustrate the economic defensibility of each type of territory.

… One of the major food sources of M. mimicus is termites. When a scout ant discovers a rich supply of termites, for example under a piece of dried cattle dung, it directs a group of nest-mates to this food supply by means of special recruitment signals. If another colony of M. mimicus is located near the food source and is detected by the foragers of the first colony, some of these individuals rush home and recruit an army of 200 or more workers to the foreign colony. They swarm over the nest and engage all of the workers emerging from the alien nest entrance in an elaborate display tournament, thus blocking this colony’s access to the food supply (Figure 8a). Frequently scouts leave the tournament to return to their colony in order to recruit reinforcement, while the other group of nest-mates continues to retrieve the termite prey. Once the food source has been exhausted, and the foraging activity in this area declines, the tournament activity at the neighboring nest site also declines and the intruding army finally retreats to its own nest.

…To date we have observed a total of 34 raids conducted by M. mimicus on conspecific neighboring nests in the field. These episodes constitute only about 8% of all tournament interactions observed. A total of 9 raiding events was observed from beginning to end, enabling us to make a fairly accurate count of the number of larvae, pupae, honeypots, and workers abducted into the raiders’ nest. From these data we estimate that the raiding colony is at least about 10× larger than the raided colony. Thus raiding seems to be primarily or perhaps even exclusively directed against younger, still developing colonies in the neighborhood. We suspect that during tournamenting the ants somehow assess the size of the opposing colony, which explains why scouts of both parties repeatedly recruit worker reinforcements to the area of conflict

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