"They think the initial success of the alien invaders would have led to high nest densities, which in turn would have favoured co-operative behaviour over aggression.

"And evolution would then have reinforced this superiority because nests devoid of internal strife would have had time and resources to fight off their enemies."

It seems that everywhere else in the world "high nest densities" competing for the same resources do NOT get along. Marked territories, fighting, and so on. The reason given is evolution, survival of the fittest, etc.

Here, they say that "high nest densities", presumably competing for the same resources, do get along. Evolved that way.

Wonder what's different. It might be that there's just so darned much ant food that there is no competition, but that doesn't seem reasonable.

Maybe they are all genetically identical, so as to seem to be from the same nest. All smell the same, have the same "uniforms", so to speak. Some genetic flaw in the queen ants has resulted in some chromosome not mutating over time. Or in the male fertilizing ants.

Or maybe "evolution" can be used to explain just about anything one wants explained. I've sort of suspected the latter, from time to time. Some explanations are so darned tortured.

Another thing to boggle the darned mind!

Arf