A COMPUTER game once given away in kids' cereal boxes is now helping Australia eradicate invasive ant species.
Australia's national science agency CSIRO and the University of Western Australia have used the 'Age of Empires' computer game to simulate ant warfare, to figure out how to help native ant species fight their invasive counterparts.
"Ants are an animal species in which warfare resembles human warfare, in terms of scale and mortality," researcher Samuel Lymbery said.
Using the game, the research team built ant armies and battlegrounds of different sizes and shapes and watched them fight, then mapped the results.
While it may seem fun to play a computer game for work, Lymbery said it wasn't as entertaining as you'd think.
"What you want to do is set up exactly the same scenario over and over again, run it in a very repetitive fashion, and not interfere too much.
"This is probably the most boring way to play a video game," he commented.
Then add in real-life "messy scenarios" and check for commonalities and differences.
They found small armies of strong soldiers did better in complex terrain-based battlefields and large armies of weaker soldiers did better in simple open battlefields.
Invasive ants species are one of Australia's "worst" problems damaging infrastructure and ruining food crops.
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