Task Allocation in Social Animal Colonies

戈登9603639就像大脑或胚胎一样，社会性昆虫群体的运作没有中央或等级控制。个体单位--工人--的简单决定导致了群体的复杂行为，尽管没有个人指导其他人的行为。蜂群在巢外执行各种任务，包括觅食、巢维护工作和巡逻。随着条件的变化，每项任务所需的蚂蚁数量也会发生变化。任务分配是使适当数量的蚂蚁在当前情况下执行适当任务的过程。如果没有中央控制，殖民地是如何做到这一点的？个人根据当地信息做出决定。这些决定决定了个体是否会切换任务，以及它是积极地执行一项任务，还是在巢内保持不活动。这项拟议的工作将调查蚂蚁在做出任务决定时使用的线索。这项拟议的研究探索了这样一种可能性，即伴侣之间互动的速度或数量是影响任务分配决定的线索之一。这项工作将使用实验室中标记的个体群体，其中巢内的所有行为都是可见的，并基于任务分配的数学模型进行计算机模拟。由于蚂蚁之间的相遇比率取决于它们的移动方式，因此将使用图像分析系统来跟踪蚂蚁在实验室巢穴和竞技场周围移动的路径。蚂蚁如何对与其他蚂蚁短暂互动的速度做出反应，将在未受干扰的蚁群中进行检验，并在操纵工蚁密度的实验中进行检验，从而获得相遇几率。对S蚂蚁身体表面碳氢化合物的化学分析将测试参与特定任务的蚂蚁是否会携带一种特定于该任务的气味，其他蚂蚁可以利用这种气味来区分它们遇到的蚂蚁的任务。这项研究应该为相当简单的个人行为可以产生社会系统复杂行为的方式提供新的见解。

Gordon 9603639 Like a brain or an embryo, a social insect colony functions without central or hierarchical control. Simple decisions by individual units, the workers, lead to the complex behavior of the colony, though no individual directs the behavior of others. Colonies perform a variety of tasks outside the nest, including foraging, nest maintenance work, and patrolling. As conditions change, the numbers of ants required for each task also change. Task allocation is the process that results in the right numbers of ants performing the right tasks for the current situation. How do colonies accomplish this without central control? Individuals make decisions based on local information. These decisions determine whether an individual will switch tasks, an whether it will pursue a task actively or instead remain inactive inside the nest. The proposed work will investigate what cues ants use in making task decisions. The proposed research explores the possibility that the rate or number of interactions among nestmates is one of the cues involved in tasks allocation decisions. The work will use laboratory colonies of marked individuals, in which all behavior inside the nest is visible, and computer simulations based on a mathematical model of task allocation. Because the rate of encounter among ants depends on how they move around, an image analysis system will be employed to track the paths of ants as they move around the laboratory nest and arena. How ants respond to the rate of brief interactions with other ants, will be examined in undisturbed colonies and in experiments that manipulate worker density, and thus encounter rate. Chemical analysis of the hydrocarbons on the surface of an ant s body will test whether ants engaged in a particular task might carry an odour specific to that task, which other ants could use to distinguish the task of the ants they meet. This research should provide new insight into the ways that fairly simple individ ual behavior can generate the complex behavior of social systems.