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

非线性系统研究的最新进展表明，简单的理论模型能够处理无法长期预测但仍具有确定性的极其复杂的动力学。这种系统的动力学是“混沌的”，而不是随机的。一个社会单位的行为是从组成它的个人的行为中产生出来的，这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模式是如何从个体的行为中衍生出来的。单个工蚁似乎有混乱的活动模式，自发地变得活跃，并恢复到不活动。蜂群大约每30分钟经历一次周期性的活动。从个体工蜂的混乱动态到群体的周期性动态的转变为研究社会表型产生的机制提供了一个机会。此外，个人的活动是混乱的，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。将蚂蚁的实际活动与混沌系统的计算机模型进行比较，科尔博士将在两种情况下研究从混沌到周期性的转变：第一，在成熟蚁群构建的人工工蚁群中，第二，在蚁群从单个个体（蚁后）过渡到有许多工蚁的成熟蚁群的正常群体增长模式中。

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.