The Organization of Activity in Leptothorax Ants: Colony Periodicity and Worker Chaos

细胸蚁的活动组织：群体周期性和工蚁混乱

• 批准号: 9120965
• 负责人: Blaine Cole
• 金额: $ 7.08万
• 依托单位: University of Houston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1992
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1992-04-15 至 1993-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9120965&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Organization; Activity; Leptothorax; Ants; Colony

Recent developments in the study of nonlinear systems have shown that simple theoretical models are capable of extremely complicated dynamics that cannot be predicted over the long term but that are nonetheless deterministic. The dynamics of such systems are "chaotic," rather than random. The emergence of the behavior of a social unit from the actions of the individuals that comprise it is one of the central problems in the study of behavior. Dr. Cole is studying how the patterns of movement activity of ant colonies are derived from the actions of individuals. Individual worker ants appear to have chaotic activity patterns, spontaneously becoming active and reverting to inactivity. Colonies go through periodic episodes of activity about every 30 minutes. The transition from the chaotic dynamics of individual workers to the periodic dynamics of colonies provides an opportunity to study the mechanisms by which a social phenotype is produced. Furthermore, the fact that the activity of an individual is chaotic, and therefore deterministic, suggests that short-term predictions can be made about the activity of workers. Comparing the actual activity of ants and computer models of chaotic systems, Dr. Cole will study the transition from chaos to periodicity in two situations: first, in artificial aggregates of workers constructed from mature colonies, and second, during the pattern of normal colony growth as the colony passes from a single individual (the queen) to a mature colony with many workers.

非线性系统研究的最新进展表明，简单的理论模型能够实现极其复杂的动力学，这些动力学无法长期预测，但仍然是确定性的。 这种系统的动态是“混乱的”，而不是随机的。 社会单位的行为从组成它的个体的行为中出现，是行为研究的核心问题之一。 科尔博士正在研究蚁群的运动活动模式是如何从个体的行为中衍生出来的。 工蚁个体似乎具有混乱的活动模式，自发地变得活跃并恢复到不活动状态。 蜂群大约每 30 分钟进行一次周期性活动。 从工蚁个体的混沌动态到群体的周期性动态的转变提供了研究社会表型产生机制的机会。 此外，个人活动是混乱的，因此是确定性的，这一事实表明可以对工人的活动进行短期预测。 比较蚂蚁的实际活动和混沌系统的计算机模型，科尔博士将研究两种情况下从混沌到周期性的转变：首先，在由成熟蚁群构建的人工聚集体中，其次，在正常蚁群生长模式下，蚁群从单个个体（蚁后）转变为拥有许多工蚁的成熟蚁群。