Decision making by small and large house-hunting ant colonies: one size fits all
Decision making by small and large house-hunting ant colonies: one size fits all
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DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.11.019
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发表时间：
2006-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Jones, Elizabeth L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Franks, Nigel R.;Dornhaus, Anna;Jones, Elizabeth L.
我们用 Temnothorax albipennis 蚁群进行了两项实验。首先，我们评估了它们在一系列平庸的巢穴中根据入口大小选择最佳巢穴的能力。小蚁群和大蚁群同样擅长解决这个 N 中最佳选择问题。然而，大型蜂群比小型蜂群更快地找到最佳巢穴，这可能是因为它们可以部署更多的侦察兵。因此，自然界中的大群体可能比小群体更快地找到更多可用的巢穴。因此，较大的菌落可能比较小的菌落更容易分裂。然而，与较小的殖民地相比，大型殖民地使用更大的群体阈值来做出集体决策。较高的群体阈值应有助于减少大菌落的分裂。大型殖民地还使用更多的反向串联运行，这是一种招募更积极的参与者进行移民的过程。更多的反向串联运行可能有助于大菌落在分裂时重新团聚。在第二个实验中，大群体和小群体对巢穴的偏好几乎相同，巢穴的占地面积最适合容纳完全成长的群体。因此，小群体的行为方式似乎可以预见到它们未来的需求，当它们长大以填充更大的空间时。
We conducted two experiments with Temnothorax albipennis ant colonies. In the first, we assessed their ability to select the best nest, in terms of entrance size, among an array of mediocre ones. Small and large ant colonies were equally adept at solving this best-of-N choice problem. However, large colonies were faster than small ones at finding the best nest probably because they could deploy more scouts. As a result, large colonies in nature probably find more of the available nests more quickly than small colonies. Thus larger colonies may have a greater tendency to split than small colonies. Large colonies, however, used larger quorum thresholds to make collective decisions than smaller colonies. Higher quorum thresholds should help to reduce splitting by large colonies. Large colonies also used more reverse tandem runs, a process for recruitment of more active participants into emigrations. More reverse tandem runs may help large colonies to reunite if they do split. In a second experiment, large and small colonies had almost identical preferences for nests with a floor area that would ideally accommodate a fully grown colony. Thus, small colonies behaved in a way that seemed to anticipate their future needs, when they would have grown to fill a larger space.