Overview

• Under food scarcity, dauer-stage nematodes climb over each other to build towers that latch onto passing insects, using phoresy to disperse to fresh feeding grounds.
• This behavior was recorded on decaying apples and pears near the University of Konstanz and on a fungus farm in Britain, marking its first documented occurrence outside the lab.
• Towers of up to 200 dauer-stage individuals consist of a single nematode species and show no signs of role differentiation among members.
• The worm stacks move in wave-like patterns, respond to touch and can bridge air gaps to reach new surfaces.
• The study, published in Current Biology, sets the stage for researchers to probe how individual worms communicate and coordinate within these living structures.