But the clever critters researchers investigated in a study recently published in the journal Science are much, much smaller: ants. They allowed these ants to build their nests for one day, before introducing 20 more ants in each container. These changes are all predicted to reduce pathogen transmission,” Leckie tells Popular Science. While these modifications alone would have a small impact on pathogen transmission, Leckie says that ants exposed to pathogens isolate themselves. “Therefore, we introduced this self-isolation mechanism into our simulations and found that the nests of pathogen-exposed ants actually enhance the effect of self-isolation in reducing pathogen transmission,” he explains.