Quorum sensing, recruitment, and collective decision-making during colony emigration by the ant Leptothorax albipennis
Quorum sensing, recruitment, and collective decision-making during colony emigration by the ant Leptothorax albipennis
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DOI：
10.1007/s00265-002-0487-x
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发表时间：
2002-07-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Franks, NR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Pratt, SC;Mallon, EB;Franks, NR
当巢穴被破坏时，一群白腹细胸蚁会巧妙地迁移到最好的新地点。我们研究了这种能力是如何从蚂蚁招募巢友到潜在家园的行为中产生的。我们发现，在一次特定的移民中，只有三分之一的殖民地工人进行了招聘。首先，他们通过双人跑召集其他招募人员，其中一名追随者被一路引导到新地点。后来，它们转而通过运输来招募被动的大多数蚁群，巢中的同伴被简单地运送到现场。这次转变之后，串联跑步会偶尔继续，但现在会朝相反的方向跑，带领招聘人员回到原来的巢穴。随着运输的开始，招募速度会加快，运输速度是串联运输的 3 倍。招募切换是由新地点的人口增加触发的，因此，当地点相对空旷时，蚂蚁会串联运行，但一旦出现法定数量的巢穴，就会转为运输。模型表明，即使很少有蚂蚁有机会直接比较地点，法定人数要求也可以帮助蚁群选择最佳可用地点，因为只有当足够多的活跃蚂蚁“相信”该地点的价值时，特定地点的招募人员才会启动大部分蚁群的快速运输。这例证了昆虫社会如何通过信息相对匮乏的昆虫的分散互动来实现适应性群体水平行为，每种昆虫都将自己有限的直接信息与有关其巢友经历的间接线索结合起来。
When its nest is damaged, a colony of the ant Leptothorax albipennis skillfully emigrates to the best available new site. We investigated how this ability emerges from the behaviors used by ants to recruit nestmates to potential homes. We found that, in a given emigration, only one-third of the colony's workers ever recruit. At first, they summon fellow recruiters via tandem runs, in which a single follower is physically led all the way to the new site. They later switch to recruiting the passive majority of the colony via transports, in which nestmates are simply carried to the site. After this switch, tandem runs continue sporadically but now run in the opposite direction, leading recruiters back to the old nest. Recruitment accelerates with the start of transport, which proceeds at a rate 3 times greater than that of tandem runs. The recruitment switch is triggered by population increase at the new site, such that ants lead tandem runs when the site is relatively empty, but change to transport once a quorum of nestmates is present. A model shows that the quorum requirement can help a colony choose the best available site, even when few ants have the opportunity to compare sites directly, because recruiters to a given site launch the rapid transport of the bulk of the colony only if enough active ants have been "convinced" of the worth of the site. This exemplifies how insect societies can achieve adaptive colony-level behaviors from the decentralized interactions of relatively poorly informed insects, each combining her own limited direct information with indirect cues about the experience of her nestmates.