Emergency networking: famine relief in ant colonies

Sendova‐Franks, Ana B.; Hayward, Rebecca K.; Wulf, Benjamin; Klimek, T E; James, Richard; Planquè, Robert; Britton, N. F.; Franks, Nigel R.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.11.035

Cited by 77 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Empirical studies show that social insects increase the number of interactions in response to environmental information, as in our Changing model. Encountering a food source increases the number of interactions in fire ants, Solenopsis invicta [66,67], honeybees, Apis mellifera [68] and rock ants, T. albipennis [52]. Increasing the total number of interactions, as in our UniformHI model, speeds-up the transmission of disease in bumblebees [16].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of individual variation on the structure and function of interaction networks in harvester ants

Pinter‐Wollman

Wollman

Guetz

et al. 2011

J. R. Soc. Interface.

128

119

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Social insects exhibit coordinated behaviour without central control. Local interactions among individuals determine their behaviour and regulate the activity of the colony. Harvester ants are recruited for outside work, using networks of brief antennal contacts, in the nest chamber closest to the nest exit: the entrance chamber. Here, we combine empirical observations, image analysis and computer simulations to investigate the structure and function of the interaction network in the entrance chamber. Ant interactions were distributed heterogeneously in the chamber, with an interaction hot-spot at the entrance leading further into the nest. The distribution of the total interactions per ant followed a right-skewed distribution, indicating the presence of highly connected individuals. Numbers of ant encounters observed positively correlated with the duration of observation. Individuals varied in interaction frequency, even after accounting for the duration of observation. An ant's interaction frequency was explained by its path shape and location within the entrance chamber. Computer simulations demonstrate that variation among individuals in connectivity accelerates information flow to an extent equivalent to an increase in the total number of interactions. Individual variation in connectivity, arising from variation among ants in location and spatial behaviour, creates interaction centres, which may expedite information flow.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of individual variation on the structure and function of interaction networks in harvester ants

Pinter‐Wollman

Wollman

Guetz

et al. 2011

J. R. Soc. Interface.

128

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This has been mainly studied in synchronised movements and activity shifts by large groups of vertebrates (Couzin et al, 2005;Sumpter et al, 2008;Dyer et al, 2009;Lusseau and Conradt, 2009) and invertebrates (Schultz et al, 2008). In insect societies, such as ant and honeybee colonies, recent studies have also highlighted the key influence of specialised and/or experienced individuals on task performance (Robson and Traniello, 1999;Sendova-Franks et al, 2010), division of labour (Anderson and Ratnieks, 1999;Gordon, 2002) and mass recruitment (Collignon and Detrain, 2011). However, most studies of collective decisionmaking still consider that self-organised, multiple-choice decisions are organised in a 'democratic' way, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledgeable individuals lead collective decisions in ants

Stroeymeyt

Franks

Giurfa

2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

Self Cite

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SUMMARYSelf-organisation underlies many collective processes in large animal groups, where coordinated patterns and activities emerge at the group level from local interactions among its members. Although the importance of key individuals acting as effective leaders has recently been recognised in certain collective processes, it is widely believed that self-organised decisions are evenly shared among all or a subset of individuals acting as decision-makers, unless there are significant conflicts of interests among group members. Here, we show that certain individuals are disproportionately influential in self-organised decisions in a system where all individuals share the same interests: nest site selection by the ant Temnothorax albipennis. Workers that visited a good available nest site prior to emigration (the familiar nest) memorised its location, and later used this memory to navigate efficiently and find that nest faster than through random exploration. Additionally, these workers relied on their private information to expedite individual decisions about the familiar nest. This conferred a bias in favour of familiar nests over novel nests during emigrations. Informed workers were shown to have a significantly greater share in both recruitment and transport to the familiar nest than naïve workers. This suggests that they were the main determinants of the collective preference for familiar nests, and thus contributed greatly to enhance collective performance. Overall, these results indicate that self-organised decisions are not always evenly shared among decision-makers, even in systems where there are no conflicts of interest. Animal groups may instead benefit from well-informed, knowledgeable individuals acting as leaders in decisions. Supplementary material available online at

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“…A number of techniques exist for tracking the spreading of food within ant colonies, ranging from visual identification of trophallaxis events, to the automatic tracking of radio-labelled food and to the use of fluorescent markers (Buffin et al, 2009;Sendova-Franks et al, 2010;Greenwald et al, 2015). However, the use of all these techniques is limited to simple 2D nests, and to our knowledge no currently developed technique allows monitoring of insect movements or food spreading inside nests built in more natural conditions.…”

Section: Nest Building and The Coordination Of Individual Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

When social behaviour is moulded in clay: on growth and form of social insect nests

Perna

Théraulaz

2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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The nests built by social insects are among the most complex structures produced by animal groups. They reveal the social behaviour of a colony and as such they potentially allow comparative studies. However, for a long time, research on nest architecture was hindered by the lack of technical tools allowing the visualisation of their complex 3D structures and the quantification of their properties. Several techniques, developed over the years, now make it possible to study the organisation of these nests and how they are built. Here, we review present knowledge of the mechanisms of nest construction, and how nest structure affects the behaviour of individual insects and the organisation of activities within a colony.

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Emergency networking: famine relief in ant colonies

Cited by 77 publications

References 30 publications

The effect of individual variation on the structure and function of interaction networks in harvester ants

The effect of individual variation on the structure and function of interaction networks in harvester ants

Knowledgeable individuals lead collective decisions in ants

When social behaviour is moulded in clay: on growth and form of social insect nests

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