Journal ArticleDOI
Modulation of trail laying in the ant Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and its role in the collective selection of a food source
TLDR
Simulations of this model showed that the observed modulation of trail laying with respect to food source quality is sufficient in itself to account for the systematic selection of the richer source seen in the experiments.Abstract:
Foragers of the ant Lasius nigerexploiting a 1 Msugar source were found to lay 43 %more trail marks than those exploiting a 0.05 or a 0.1 Msource. The trail laying per forager decreased during the course of individual recruitment episodes, and the mean lifetime of the trail pheromone was estimated to be 47 min. A mathematical function describing the probability that a forager chooses one of two paths in relation to the amount of trail pheromone on them closely fitted experimental data. These results were incorporated into a model describing the recruitment dynamics of L. niger.Simulations of this model showed that the observed modulation of trail laying with respect to food source quality is sufficient in itself to account for the systematic selection of the richer source seen in the experiments.read more
Citations
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Book ChapterDOI
Decision-making in foraging by social insects
TL;DR: Experimental and theoretical findings will lead us to re-consider the level of complexity of information processing and coding needed for the emergence of adaptive foraging patterns in social insects.
Journal ArticleDOI
Pheromone trail decay rates on different substrates in the Pharaoh's ant, Monomorium pharaonis
TL;DR: Investigation of the rate at which a well‐established Pharaoh's ant, Monomorium pharaonis, trail breaks down on two substrates shows that, for M. pharaonian, trail decay is rapid and is affected strongly by trail substrate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Teaching with evaluation in ants
Thomas O. Richardson,Philippa A. Sleeman,John M. McNamara,Alasdair I. Houston,Nigel R. Franks +4 more
TL;DR: The authors' results demonstrate T. albipennis performs three different kinds of evaluation, in which a knowledgeable ant physically guides a naive follower to a goal, and ant teachers modulate their giving-up time depending on the value of the goal.
Journal Article
Spatiotemporal resource distribution and foraging strategies of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that different foraging strategies are indeed associated with specific spatiotemporal resource attributes, and the general patterns described here can be used as a framework to inform predictions in future studies of ant foraging behavior.
Journal ArticleDOI
Scavenging by Pheidole pallidula: a key for understanding decision-making systems in ants.
TL;DR: Experiments with small immovable prey showed that the tractive resistance of prey was the key parameter the foragers used to estimate prey size and that it ruled their trail-laying intensity, allowing a model about decision making in scavenging to be generated.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
The self-organizing exploratory pattern of the argentine ant
TL;DR: A minimal model shows how the exploratory pattern may be generated by the individual workers' simple trail-laying and -following behavior, illustrating how complex collective structures in insect colonies may be based on self-organization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Collective decision-making in honey bees: how colonies choose among nectar sources
TL;DR: It is suggested that honey bee colonies possess decentralized decision-making because it combines effectiveness with simplicity of communication and computation within a colony.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trails and U-turns in the Selection of a Path by the Ant Lasius niger
TL;DR: The selection of the path is shown to be a collective process whereby trail laying and following amplifies small initial differences in the traffic on each path caused by these three mechanisms, and the foragers show no significant tendency to follow the path they used previously.
Journal ArticleDOI
Collective decision making through food recruitment
TL;DR: A series of experiments shows how the andLasius niger uses its trail recruitment system to select between two food sources, simultaneously presented with to 1M sucrose solution and when offered a 1M solution together with a 0.1M solution.
Journal ArticleDOI
A model of collective nectar source selection by honey bees : self-organization through simple rules
Scott Camazine,James Sneyd +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model that describes the honey bee colony's decision-making process, which consists of a system of non-linear differential equations describing the activity of the foraging bees.