This image is from a paper by Robert M. Pringle and Corina E. Tarnita, and it was taken by a satellite and then treated to show the areas of high productivity around the termite mounds at the Mpala Research Center in Kenya, where they do much of their research.
I wrote about their work with termites, ecology, and math in Underbug. You can read an excerpt that was published in Scientific American.
lisa margonelli 