Activity-Based Costing

Biological Parallel

Ant colonies track energetic costs per activity: foragers burn 7x more calories than nurses, soldiers consume 3x more than fungus-tenders, and the queen requires 10x more protein during egg-laying. The colony allocates food based on activity-specific metabolic demands, not equal rations. This activity-based resource allocation prevents high-cost roles from being energy-starved while low-cost roles waste surplus. Organisms that can't track task-level costs allocate resources inefficiently and get outcompeted.