Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Infrastructure construction without information exchange : the trail clearing mechanism in Atta leafcutter ants
A wide range of group-living animals construct tangible infrastructure networks, often of remarkable size and complexity. In ant colonies, infrastructure construction may require tens of thousands of work hours distributed among many thousand individuals. What are the individual behaviours involved in the construction and what level of complexity in inter-individual interaction is required to organize this effort? We investigate this question in one of the most sophisticated trail builders in the animal world: the leafcutter ants, which remove leaf litter, cut through overhangs and shift soil to level the path of trail networks that may cumulatively extend for kilometres. Based on obstruction experiments in the field and the laboratory, we identify and quantify different individual trail clearing behaviours. Via a computational model, we further investigate the presence of recruitment, which—through direct or indirect information transfer between individuals—is one of the main organizing mechanisms of many collective behaviours in ants. We show that large-scale transport networks can emerge purely from the stochastic process of workers encountering obstructions and subsequently engaging in removal behaviour with a fixed probability. In addition to such incidental removal, we describe a dedicated clearing behaviour in which workers remove additional obstructions independent of chance encounters. We show that to explain the dynamics observed in the experiments, no information exchange (e.g. via recruitment) is required, and propose that large-scale infrastructure construction of this type can be achieved without coordination between individuals. ; published
Infrastructure construction without information exchange : the trail clearing mechanism in Atta leafcutter ants
A wide range of group-living animals construct tangible infrastructure networks, often of remarkable size and complexity. In ant colonies, infrastructure construction may require tens of thousands of work hours distributed among many thousand individuals. What are the individual behaviours involved in the construction and what level of complexity in inter-individual interaction is required to organize this effort? We investigate this question in one of the most sophisticated trail builders in the animal world: the leafcutter ants, which remove leaf litter, cut through overhangs and shift soil to level the path of trail networks that may cumulatively extend for kilometres. Based on obstruction experiments in the field and the laboratory, we identify and quantify different individual trail clearing behaviours. Via a computational model, we further investigate the presence of recruitment, which—through direct or indirect information transfer between individuals—is one of the main organizing mechanisms of many collective behaviours in ants. We show that large-scale transport networks can emerge purely from the stochastic process of workers encountering obstructions and subsequently engaging in removal behaviour with a fixed probability. In addition to such incidental removal, we describe a dedicated clearing behaviour in which workers remove additional obstructions independent of chance encounters. We show that to explain the dynamics observed in the experiments, no information exchange (e.g. via recruitment) is required, and propose that large-scale infrastructure construction of this type can be achieved without coordination between individuals. ; published
Infrastructure construction without information exchange : the trail clearing mechanism in Atta leafcutter ants
Bochynek, Thomas (Autor:in) / Burd, Martin (Autor:in) / Kleineidam, Christoph Johannes (Autor:in) / Meyer, Bernd (Autor:in)
30.01.2019
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences ; 286 (2019), 1895. - 20182539. - ISSN 0962-8452. - eISSN 1471-2954
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Dynamics of physical trail construction and of trail usage in the leaf-cutting ant Atta laevigata
| BASE | 2018
FORMFOKUS: °ATTA DESIGNER, 8 MATTOR
Online Contents | 2000
°Atta vägar i utställningens landskap.
| Online Contents | 1999