Journal articles: 'Ant colony social behaviour'

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Hamilton, Casey, Brian T. Lejeune, and Rebeca B. Rosengaus. "Trophallaxis and prophylaxis: social immunity in the carpenter ant Camponotus pennsylvanicus." Biology Letters 7, no. 1 (June 30, 2010): 89–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0466.

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In social insects, group behaviour can increase disease resistance among nest-mates and generate social prophylaxis. Stomodeal trophallaxis, or mutual feeding through regurgitation, may boost colony-level immunocompetence. We provide evidence for increased trophallactic behaviour among immunized workers of the carpenter ant Camponotus pennsylvanicus , which, together with increased antimicrobial activity of the regurgitate droplet, help explain the improved survival of droplet recipient ants relative to controls following an immune challenge. We have identified a protein related to cathepsin D, a lysosomal protease, as a potential contributor to the antimicrobial activity. The combined behavioural and immunological responses to infection in these ants probably represent an effective mechanism underlying the social facilitation of disease resistance, which could potentially produce socially mediated colony-wide prophylaxis. The externalization and sharing of an individual's immune responses via trophallaxis could be an important component of social immunity, allowing insect colonies to thrive under high pathogenic pressures.

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Shimoji, Hiroyuki, Tomonori Kikuchi, Hitoshi Ohnishi, Noritsugu Kikuta, and Kazuki Tsuji. "Social enforcement depending on the stage of colony growth in an ant." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285, no. 1875 (March 28, 2018): 20172548. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2548.

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Altruism is a paradox in Darwinian evolution. Policing is an important mechanism of the evolution and maintenance of altruism. A recently developed dynamic game model incorporating colony demography and inclusive fitness predicts that, in hymenopteran social insects, policing behaviour enforcing reproductive altruism in group members depends strongly on the colony growth stage, with strong policing as the colony develops and a relaxation of policing during the reproductive phase. Here, we report clear evidence supporting this prediction. In the ant Diacamma sp., reproduction by workers was suppressed by worker policing when the colony was small, whereas in large, mature colonies worker policing was relaxed and worker-produced males emerged. Conditional expression of traits can provide strong empirical evidence for natural selection theory if the expression pattern is precisely predicted by the theory, and our results illustrate the importance of intracolony population dynamics in the evolution of social systems.

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Cao, Tuan T., and Anna Dornhaus. "Ants under crowded conditions consume more energy." Biology Letters 4, no. 6 (September 2, 2008): 613–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0381.

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Social insects live in colonies consisting of many workers, where worker interactions play an important role in regulating colony activities. Workers interact within the social space of the nest; therefore, constraints on nest space may alter worker behaviour and affect colony activities and energetics. Here we show in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus that changes in nest space have a significant effect on colony energetics. Colonies with restricted nest space showed a 14.2 per cent increase in metabolic rate when compared with the same colonies in large uncrowded nests. Our study highlights the importance of social space and shows that constraints on social space can significantly affect colony behaviour and energy use in ants. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding social insects in general.

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Tamura, Yoshiki, Tomoko Sakiyama, and Ikuo Arizono. "Ant Colony Optimization Using Common Social Information and Self-Memory." Complexity 2021 (January 7, 2021): 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/6610670.

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Ant colony optimization (ACO), which is one of the metaheuristics imitating real ant foraging behavior, is an eﬀective method to ﬁnd a solution for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). The rank-based ant system (ASrank) has been proposed as a developed version of the fundamental model AS of ACO. In the ASrank, since only ant agents that have found one of some excellent solutions are let to regulate the pheromone, the pheromone concentrates on a specific route. As a result, although the ASrank can find a relatively good solution in a short time, it has the disadvantage of being prone falling into a local solution because the pheromone concentrates on a specific route. This problem seems to come from the loss of diversity in route selection according to the rapid accumulation of pheromones to the specific routes. Some ACO models, not just the ASrank, also suffer from this problem of loss of diversity in route selection. It can be considered that the diversity of solutions as well as the selection of solutions is an important factor in the solution system by swarm intelligence such as ACO. In this paper, to solve this problem, we introduce the ant system using individual memories (ASIM) aiming to improve the ability to solve TSP while maintaining the diversity of the behavior of each ant. We apply the existing ACO algorithms and ASIM to some TSP benchmarks and compare the ability to solve TSP.

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Tamura, Yoshiki, Tomoko Sakiyama, and Ikuo Arizono. "Ant Colony Optimization Using Common Social Information and Self-Memory." Complexity 2021 (January 7, 2021): 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/6610670.

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Ant colony optimization (ACO), which is one of the metaheuristics imitating real ant foraging behavior, is an eﬀective method to ﬁnd a solution for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). The rank-based ant system (ASrank) has been proposed as a developed version of the fundamental model AS of ACO. In the ASrank, since only ant agents that have found one of some excellent solutions are let to regulate the pheromone, the pheromone concentrates on a specific route. As a result, although the ASrank can find a relatively good solution in a short time, it has the disadvantage of being prone falling into a local solution because the pheromone concentrates on a specific route. This problem seems to come from the loss of diversity in route selection according to the rapid accumulation of pheromones to the specific routes. Some ACO models, not just the ASrank, also suffer from this problem of loss of diversity in route selection. It can be considered that the diversity of solutions as well as the selection of solutions is an important factor in the solution system by swarm intelligence such as ACO. In this paper, to solve this problem, we introduce the ant system using individual memories (ASIM) aiming to improve the ability to solve TSP while maintaining the diversity of the behavior of each ant. We apply the existing ACO algorithms and ASIM to some TSP benchmarks and compare the ability to solve TSP.

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Grari, Hicham, Siham Lamzabi, Ahmed Azouaoui, and Khalid Zine-Dine. "Cryptanalysis of Merkle-Hellman cipher using ant colony optimization." IAES International Journal of Artificial Intelligence (IJ-AI) 10, no. 2 (June 1, 2021): 490. http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijai.v10.i2.pp490-500.

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The Merkle-Hellman (MH) cryptosystem is one of the earliest public key cryptosystems, which is introduced by Ralph Merkle and Martin Hellman in 1978 based on an NP-hard problem, known as the subset-sum problem. Furthermore, ant colony optimization (ACO) is one of the most nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimization, which simulates the social behaviour of ant colonies. ACO has demonstrated excellent performance in solving a wide variety of complex problems. In this paper, we present a novel ant colony optimization (ACO) based attack for cryptanalysis of MH cipher algorithm, where two different search techniques are used. Moreover, experimental study is included, showing the effectiveness of the proposed attacking scheme. The results show that ACO based attack is more suitable than many other algorithms like genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO).

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Pulliainen, Unni, Heikki Helanterä, Liselotte Sundström, and Eva Schultner. "The possible role of ant larvae in the defence against social parasites." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286, no. 1898 (March 6, 2019): 20182867. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2867.

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Temporary social parasite ant queens initiate new colonies by entering colonies of host species, where they begin laying eggs. As the resident queen can be killed during this process, host colonies may lose their entire future reproductive output. Selection thus favours the evolution of defence mechanisms, before and after parasite intrusion. Most studies on social parasites focus on host worker discrimination of parasite queens and their offspring. However, ant larvae can also influence brood composition by consuming eggs. This raises the question whether host larvae can aid in preventing colony takeover by consuming eggs laid by parasite queens. To test whether larvae could play a role in anti-parasite defence, we compared the rates at which larvae of a common host species, Formica fusca , consumed eggs laid by social parasite, non-parasite, nest-mate, or conspecific non-nest-mate queens. Larvae consumed social parasite eggs more than eggs laid by a heterospecific non-parasite queen, irrespective of the chemical distance between the egg cuticular profiles. Also, larvae consumed eggs laid by conspecific non-nest-mate queens more than those laid by nest-mate queens. Our study suggests that larvae may act as players in colony defence against social parasitism, and that social parasitism is a key factor shaping discrimination behaviour in ants.

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Goel, Lavika, and Anubhav Garg. "Sentiment Analysis of Social Networking Websites using Gravitational Search Optimization Algorithm." International Journal of Applied Evolutionary Computation 9, no. 1 (January 2018): 76–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijaec.2018010105.

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Analysing sentiments of various online communities have become now an interesting topic of research and industry. The behaviour of online communities resembles that of a swarm. This article presents a Gravitational Search algorithmic approach for sentiment analysis of online communities, and an optimization algorithm which is based on the mass interactions and law of gravity. In the end, the authors present comparisons with other techniques, particularly ant colony optimization and Naive Bayes classification for sentiment analysis.

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Theis, Fabian J., Line V. Ugelvig, Carsten Marr, and Sylvia Cremer. "Opposing effects of allogrooming on disease transmission in ant societies." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 370, no. 1669 (May 26, 2015): 20140108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0108.

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To prevent epidemics, insect societies have evolved collective disease defences that are highly effective at curing exposed individuals and limiting disease transmission to healthy group members. Grooming is an important sanitary behaviour—either performed towards oneself (self-grooming) or towards others (allogrooming)—to remove infectious agents from the body surface of exposed individuals, but at the risk of disease contraction by the groomer. We use garden ants ( Lasius neglectus ) and the fungal pathogen Metarhizium as a model system to study how pathogen presence affects self-grooming and allogrooming between exposed and healthy individuals. We develop an epidemiological SIS model to explore how experimentally observed grooming patterns affect disease spread within the colony, thereby providing a direct link between the expression and direction of sanitary behaviours, and their effects on colony-level epidemiology. We find that fungus-exposed ants increase self-grooming, while simultaneously decreasing allogrooming. This behavioural modulation seems universally adaptive and is predicted to contain disease spread in a great variety of host–pathogen systems. In contrast, allogrooming directed towards pathogen-exposed individuals might both increase and decrease disease risk. Our model reveals that the effect of allogrooming depends on the balance between pathogen infectiousness and efficiency of social host defences, which are likely to vary across host–pathogen systems.

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Moore, Dani, and Jürgen Liebig. "Mechanisms of social regulation change across colony development in an ant." BMC Evolutionary Biology 10, no. 1 (2010): 328. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-10-328.

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Chandra, Vikram, Asaf Gal, and Daniel J. C. Kronauer. "Colony expansions underlie the evolution of army ant mass raiding." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 22 (May 25, 2021): e2026534118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026534118.

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The mass raids of army ants are an iconic collective phenomenon, in which many thousands of ants spontaneously leave their nest to hunt for food, mostly other arthropods. While the structure and ecology of these raids have been relatively well studied, how army ants evolved such complex cooperative behavior is not understood. Here, we show that army ant mass raiding has evolved from a different form of cooperative hunting called group raiding, in which a scout directs a small group of ants to a specific target through chemical communication. We describe the structure of group raids in the clonal raider ant, a close relative of army ants in the subfamily Dorylinae. We find evidence that the coarse structure of group raids and mass raids is highly conserved and that all doryline ants likely follow similar behavioral rules for raiding. We also find that the evolution of army ant mass raiding occurred concurrently with expansions in colony size. By experimentally increasing colony size in the clonal raider ant, we show that mass raiding gradually emerges from group raiding without altering individual behavioral rules. This suggests that increasing colony size can explain the evolution of army ant mass raids and supports the idea that complex social behaviors may evolve via mechanisms that need not alter the behavioral interaction rules that immediately underlie the collective behavior of interest.

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Waters, James S., Alison Ochs, Jennifer H. Fewell, and Jon F. Harrison. "Differentiating causality and correlation in allometric scaling: ant colony size drives metabolic hypometry." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 284, no. 1849 (February 22, 2017): 20162582. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.2582.

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Metabolic rates of individual animals and social insect colonies generally scale hypometrically, with mass-specific metabolic rates decreasing with increasing size. Although this allometry has wide ranging effects on social behaviour, ecology and evolution, its causes remain controversial. Because it is difficult to experimentally manipulate body size of organisms, most studies of metabolic scaling depend on correlative data, limiting their ability to determine causation. To overcome this limitation, we experimentally reduced the size of harvester ant colonies ( Pogonomyrmex californicus ) and quantified the consequent increase in mass-specific metabolic rates. Our results clearly demonstrate a causal relationship between colony size and hypometric changes in metabolic rate that could not be explained by changes in physical density. These findings provide evidence against prominent models arguing that the hypometric scaling of metabolic rate is primarily driven by constraints on resource delivery or surface area/volume ratios, because colonies were provided with excess food and colony size does not affect individual oxygen or nutrient transport. We found that larger colonies had lower median walking speeds and relatively more stationary ants and including walking speed as a variable in the mass-scaling allometry greatly reduced the amount of residual variation in the model, reinforcing the role of behaviour in metabolic allometry. Following the experimental size reduction, however, the proportion of stationary ants increased, demonstrating that variation in locomotory activity cannot solely explain hypometric scaling of metabolic rates in these colonies. Based on prior studies of this species, the increase in metabolic rate in size-reduced colonies could be due to increased anabolic processes associated with brood care and colony growth.

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Beros, Sara, Evelien Jongepier, Felizitas Hagemeier, and Susanne Foitzik. "The parasite's long arm: a tapeworm parasite induces behavioural changes in uninfected group members of its social host." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 282, no. 1819 (November 22, 2015): 20151473. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1473.

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Parasites can induce alterations in host phenotypes in order to enhance their own survival and transmission. Parasites of social insects might not only benefit from altering their individual hosts, but also from inducing changes in uninfected group members. Temnothorax nylanderi ant workers infected with the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis are known to be chemically distinct from nest-mates and do not contribute to colony fitness, but are tolerated in their colonies and well cared for. Here, we investigated how tapeworm- infected workers affect colony aggression by manipulating their presence in ant colonies and analysing whether their absence or presence resulted in behavioural alterations in their nest-mates. We report a parasite-induced shift in colony aggression, shown by lower aggression of uninfected nest-mates from parasitized colonies towards conspecifics, potentially explaining the tolerance towards infected ants. We also demonstrate that tapeworm-infected workers showed a reduced flight response and higher survival, while their presence caused a decrease in survival of uninfected nest-mates. This anomalous behaviour of infected ants, coupled with their increased survival, could facilitate the parasites' transmission to its definitive hosts, woodpeckers. We conclude that parasites exploiting individuals that are part of a society not only induce phenotypic changes within their individual hosts, but in uninfected group members as well.

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Fujioka, Haruna, Yasukazu Okada, and Masato S. Abe. "Bipartite network analysis of ant-task associations reveals task groups and absence of colonial daily activity." Royal Society Open Science 8, no. 1 (January 13, 2021): 201637. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201637.

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Social insects are one of the best examples of complex self-organized systems exhibiting task allocation. How task allocation is achieved is the most fascinating question in behavioural ecology and complex systems science. However, it is difficult to comprehensively characterize task allocation patterns due to behavioural complexity, such as the individual variation, context dependency and chronological variation. Thus, it is imperative to quantify individual behaviours and integrate them into colony levels. Here, we applied bipartite network analyses to characterize individual-behaviour relationships. We recorded the behaviours of all individuals with verified age in ant colonies and analysed the individual-behaviour relationship at the individual, module and network levels. Bipartite network analysis successfully detected the module structures, illustrating that certain individuals performed a subset of behaviours (i.e. task groups). We confirmed age polyethism by comparing age between modules. Additionally, to test the daily rhythm of the executed tasks, the data were partitioned between daytime and nighttime, and a bipartite network was re-constructed. This analysis supported that there was no daily rhythm in the tasks performed. These findings suggested that bipartite network analyses could untangle complex task allocation patterns and provide insights into understanding the division of labour.

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Boulay, R., V. Soroker, E. J. Godzinska, A. Hefetz, and A. Lenoir. "Octopamine reverses the isolation-induced increase in trophallaxis in the carpenter ant Camponotus fellah." Journal of Experimental Biology 203, no. 3 (February 1, 2000): 513–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.203.3.513.

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Social deprivation is an unusual situation for ants that normally maintain continuous contact with their nestmates. When a worker was experimentally isolated for 5 days and then reunited with a nestmate, she engaged in prolonged trophallaxis. It is suggested that trophallaxis allows her to restore a social bond with her nestmates and to re-integrate into the colony, particularly via the exchange of colony-specific hydrocarbons. Octopamine reduced trophallaxis in these workers as well as hydrocarbon transfer between nestmates, but not hydrocarbon biosynthesis. Administration of serotonin to such 5-day-isolated ants had no effect on the percentage of trophallaxis. Administration of phentolamine alone, an octopamine antagonist, had no effect, but when co-administrated with octopamine it reduced the effect of octopamine alone and restored trophallaxis to control levels. Moreover, the observed effect of octopamine was not due to a non-specific effect on locomotor activity. Therefore, we hypothesise that octopamine mediates behaviour patterns linked to social bonding, such as trophallaxis. On the basis of an analogy with the role of norepinephrine in vertebrates, we suggest that the levels of octopamine in the brain of socially deprived ants may decrease, together with a concomitant increase in their urge to perform trophallaxis and to experience social contacts. Octopamine administration may reduce this social deprivation effect, and octopamine could therefore be regarded as being partly responsible for the social cohesion between nestmates in ant colonies.

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Ortius, Diethe. "ADolichoderus taschenbergiQueen Found in a Polygynous Colony ofD. plagiatus(Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 102, no. 3-4 (1995): 147–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/1995/58014.

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Very little is known about colony founding strategies and social organization of the four North American species of the ant genusDolichoderus. I here report the finding of aDolichoderus taschenbergiqueen in a colony ofD. plagiatus, which suggests parasitic colony founding may occur occasionally inDolichoderus taschenbergi. In addition, the colony contained three reproductively active queens ofD. plagiatus, indicating that this species is facultatively polygynous.

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Nehring, Volker, Sophie E. F. Evison, Lorenzo A. Santorelli, Patrizia d'Ettorre, and William O. H. Hughes. "Kin-informative recognition cues in ants." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278, no. 1714 (December 2010): 1942–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.2295.

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Although social groups are characterized by cooperation, they are also often the scene of conflict. In non-clonal systems, the reproductive interests of group members will differ and individuals may benefit by exploiting the cooperative efforts of other group members. However, such selfish behaviour is thought to be rare in one of the classic examples of cooperation—social insect colonies—because the colony-level costs of individual selfishness select against cues that would allow workers to recognize their closest relatives. In accord with this, previous studies of wasps and ants have found little or no kin information in recognition cues. Here, we test the hypothesis that social insects do not have kin-informative recognition cues by investigating the recognition cues and relatedness of workers from four colonies of the ant Acromyrmex octospinosus . Contrary to the theoretical prediction, we show that the cuticular hydrocarbons of ant workers in all four colonies are informative enough to allow full-sisters to be distinguished from half-sisters with a high accuracy. These results contradict the hypothesis of non-heritable recognition cues and suggest that there is more potential for within-colony conflicts in genetically diverse societies than previously thought.

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Burd, Martin, and Jerome J. Howard. "Optimality in a partitioned task performed by social insects." Biology Letters 4, no. 6 (September 9, 2008): 627–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0398.

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Biologists have long been aware that adaptations should not be analysed in isolation from the function of the whole organism. Here, we address the equivalent issue at the scale of a social insect colony: the optimality of component behaviours in a partitioned sequence of tasks. In colonies of Atta colombica , a leaf-cutting ant, harvested leaf tissue is passed from foragers to nest workers that distribute, clean, shred and implant the tissue in fungal gardens. In four laboratory colonies of A. colombica , we found that the highest colony-wide rate of leaf tissue processing in the nest was achieved when leaf fragment sizes were suboptimal for individual delivery rate by foragers. Leaf-cutting ant colonies appear to compromise the efficiency of collecting leaf tissue in order to increase their ability to handle the material when it arrives in the nest. Such compromise reinforces the idea that behavioural adaptations, like adaptations in general, must be considered within the context of the larger entity of which they are a part.

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Barth, M. Benjamin, Katrin Kellner, and Jürgen Heinze. "The police are not the army: context-dependent aggressiveness in a clonal ant." Biology Letters 6, no. 3 (January 13, 2010): 329–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.0849.

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Animals often exhibit particular ‘personalities’, i.e. their behaviour is correlated across different situations. Recent studies suggest that this limitation of behavioural plasticity may be adaptive, since continuous adjustment of one's behaviour may be time-consuming and costly. In social insects, particularly aggressive workers might efficiently take over fighting in the contexts of both nest defence and ‘policing’, i.e. the regulation of kin conflict in the society. Here, we examine whether workers who engage in aggressive policing in the ant Platythyrea punctata play a prominent role also in nest defence against intruders. The participation of individuals in policing and nest defence was highly skewed and a minority of workers exhibited most of the aggression. Workers who attacked reproductives after experimental colony fusion were less active during nest defence and vice versa. This suggests that workers show situation-dependent behavioural plasticity rather than consistently aggressive personalities.

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Tsutsui, Neil D. "Dissecting ant recognition systems in the age of genomics." Biology Letters 9, no. 6 (December 23, 2013): 20130416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0416.

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Hamilton is probably best known for his seminal work demonstrating the role of kin selection in social evolution. His work made it clear that, for individuals to direct their altruistic behaviours towards appropriate recipients (kin), mechanisms must exist for kin recognition. In the social insects, colonies are typically comprised of kin, and colony recognition cues are used as proxies for kinship cues. Recent years have brought rapid advances in our understanding of the genetic and molecular mechanisms that are used for this process. Here, I review some of the most notable advances, particularly the contributions from recent ant genome sequences and molecular biology.

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Shah, Habib, Rozaida Ghazali, Nazri Mohd Nawi, and Mustafa Mat Deris. "G-HABC Algorithm for Training Artificial Neural Networks." International Journal of Applied Metaheuristic Computing 3, no. 3 (July 2012): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jamc.2012070101.

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Learning problems for Neural Network (NN) has widely been explored in the past two decades. Researchers have focused more on population-based algorithms because of its natural behavior processing. The population-based algorithms are Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), and recently Hybrid Ant Bee Colony (HABC) algorithm produced an easy way for NN training. These social based techniques are mostly used for finding best weight values and over trapping local minima in NN learning. Typically, NN trained by traditional approach, namely the Backpropagation (BP) algorithm, has difficulties such as trapping in local minima and slow convergence. The new method named Global Hybrid Ant Bee Colony (G-HABC) algorithm which can overcome the gaps in BP is used to train the NN for Boolean Function classification task. The simulation results of the NN when trained with the proposed hybrid method were compared with that of Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) and ordinary ABC. From the results, the proposed G-HABC algorithm has shown to provide a better learning performance for NNs with reduced CPU time and higher success rates.

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Ahmed, Nisreen L. "ACO powered by Local Searches Algorithms for the Solution of TSP Problems." Qubahan Academic Journal 1, no. 1 (November 14, 2020): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.48161/qaj.v1n1a5.

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Swarm intelligence is a relatively new approach to problem solving that takes inspiration from the social behaviors of insects and other animals. Ants, in particular, have inspired a number of methods and techniques among which the most studied and successful is the general-purpose optimization technique, also known as ant colony optimization, In computer science and operations research, the ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) is a probabilistic technique for solving computational problems which can be reduced to finding good paths through graphs. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm is used to arrive at the best solution for TSP. In this article, the researcher has introduced ways to use a great deluge algorithm with the ACO algorithm to increase the ability of the ACO in finding the best tour (optimal tour). Results are given for different TSP problems by using ACO with great deluge and other local search algorithms.

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Valadares, Lohan, and Fábio S. Nascimento. "Social Carrying and Defensive Behavior During Colony Emigration in the Leaf-cutting Ant Atta sexdens." Sociobiology 64, no. 4 (December 27, 2017): 492. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v64i4.2087.

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In this work, we describe for the first time and under laboratory conditions, the behaviors related to social carrying and defensive strategies during colony emigration in the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens. Once colonies were laid on a tray under suboptimal conditions, groups of workers aggregated all over the body surface of the queen and brood, with mandibles half open and legs widely open in a ‘entangle’ formation. Queens were the first caste to be reallocated, followed respectively by the transportation of brood, newly-emerged workers, and pieces of fungus garden to the new nesting site. Contrary to what have been reported to the Myrmicinae species, adult transport followed a stereotyped sequence of acts involving approach, seize and transportation of newly-emerged workers to new target areas. Our results suggest that, in front of rapid unfavorable changes, leaf-cutting ants are capable of reorganize the nest in order to protect their members and resources.

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Eriksson, T. H., B. Hölldobler, J. E. Taylor, and J. Gadau. "Intraspecific variation in colony founding behavior and social organization in the honey ant Myrmecocystus mendax." Insectes Sociaux 66, no. 2 (January 23, 2019): 283–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-019-00687-y.

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Shah, Habib, Rozaida Ghazali, Nazri Mohd Nawi, Mustafa Mat Deris, and Tutut Herawan. "Global Artificial Bee Colony-Levenberq-Marquardt (GABC-LM) Algorithm for Classification." International Journal of Applied Evolutionary Computation 4, no. 3 (July 2013): 58–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jaec.2013070106.

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The performance of Neural Networks (NN) depends on network structure, activation function and suitable weight values. For finding optimal weight values, freshly, computer scientists show the interest in the study of social insect’s behavior learning algorithms. Chief among these are, Ant Colony Optimzation (ACO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, Hybrid Ant Bee Colony (HABC) algorithm and Global Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm train Multilayer Perceptron (MLP). This paper investigates the new hybrid technique called Global Artificial Bee Colony-Levenberq-Marquardt (GABC-LM) algorithm. One of the crucial problems with the BP algorithm is that it can sometimes yield the networks with suboptimal weights because of the presence of many local optima in the solution space. To overcome GABC-LM algorithm used in this work to train MLP for the boolean function classification task, the performance of GABC-LM is benchmarked against MLP training with the typical LM, PSO, ABC and GABC. The experimental result shows that GABC-LM performs better than that standard BP, ABC, PSO and GABC for the classification task.

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Pinter-Wollman, Noa, Roy Wollman, Adam Guetz, Susan Holmes, and Deborah M. Gordon. "The effect of individual variation on the structure and function of interaction networks in harvester ants." Journal of The Royal Society Interface 8, no. 64 (April 13, 2011): 1562–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2011.0059.

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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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Qiang, Xu, Zhao Huiqi, Farhad Ali, and Shah Nazir. "Criterial Based Opinion Leader’s Selection for Decision-Making Using Ant Colony Optimization." Scientific Programming 2021 (July 28, 2021): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/4624334.

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The Internet has already become a medium for people to access information, express their views, and connect with one another through various media and tools as a result of its rapid global development. Web 2.0 has become increasingly important in people’s daily lives. With the passing of time, many online communities, such as blogs, forums, and websites, are becoming more interactive. Individuals can easily express their opinions publicly and see what others say about their opinions. In a social network, an opinion leader is a powerful individual who is an expert in a particular field and has a large number of people who follow his or her comments or ideas. Companies and governments may contact the most powerful people after discovering them in order to influence sales or guide public opinion, respectively. In heterogeneous communication networks, opinion leaders serve as an influencer for the acceptance and dissemination of new products and users in marketing. Others’ drives, values, perceptions, motivations, and actions can be influenced by opinion leaders. These influences have a major effect on other customers’ policymaking processes. Opinion leaders come in a variety of demographic shapes; in general, they are committed, ambitious, and dynamic individuals with excellent academic and social edifications who persuade customers through their expert knowledge. Opinions and values are the most important variables in human experiences in social phenomena. The method of assessing opinions is extremely difficult since people often change their minds when speaking with others. The study of the evolution and formation of opinions in a social group is known as opinion dynamics, and it is based on collective decision-making. The bounded confidence rule is one of the intrinsic interaction principles in the dynamics of human actions. Many models have been created to date to explore the dynamics of leaders’ decision-making. Due to the social network’s high complexity and the randomness and contingency of their behavior, identifying opinion leaders in the network is difficult. Organizations and entrepreneurs must choose which opinion leaders to partner with to gain a deeper understanding of how to communicate with them to promote various goods and services. For the opinion leader’s selection optimization, the proposed framework feature-based opinion leader selection is utilized using the ant colony optimization technique that selects the best opinion leader based on their unique features. The proposed method will address the opinion leader selection problem.

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Alrashidi, Malek. "Social Distancing in Indoor Spaces: An Intelligent Guide Based on the Internet of Things: COVID-19 as a Case Study." Computers 9, no. 4 (November 7, 2020): 91. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/computers9040091.

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Using Internet of Things (IoT) solutions is a promising way to ensure that social distancing is respected, especially in common indoor spaces. This paper proposes a system of placement and relocation of people within an indoor space, using an intelligent method based on two optimizers (ant colony and particle swarm) to find the optimal relocation of a set of people equipped with IoT devices to control their locations and movements. As a real-world test, an amphitheater with students was used, and the algorithms guided students toward correct, safe positions. Two evolutionary algorithms are proposed to resolve the studied problem, ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization. Then, a comparative analysis was performed between these two algorithms and a genetic algorithm, using different evaluation metrics to assess the behavior of the proposed system. The results show the efficiency of the proposed intelligent IoT system.

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Roeder, Karl A., Rebecca M. Prather, Anna W. Paraskevopoulos, and Diane V. Roeder. "The Economics of Optimal Foraging by the Red Imported Fire Ant." Environmental Entomology 49, no. 2 (March 7, 2020): 304–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvaa016.

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Abstract For social organisms, foraging is often a complicated behavior where tasks are divided among numerous individuals. Here, we ask how one species, the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta Buren) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), collectively manages this behavior. We tested the Diminishing Returns Hypothesis, which posits that for social insects 1) foraging investment levels increase until diminishing gains result in a decelerating slope of return and 2) the level of investment is a function of the size of the collective group. We compared how different metrics of foraging (e.g., number of foragers, mass of foragers, and body size of foragers) are correlated and how these metrics change over time. We then tested the prediction that as fire ant colonies increase in size, both discovery time and the inflection point (i.e., the time point where colonial investment toward resources slows) should decrease while a colony’s maximum foraging mass should increase. In congruence with our predictions, we found that fire ants recruited en masse toward baits, allocating 486 workers and 148 mg of biomass, on average, after 60 min: amounts that were not different 30 min prior. There was incredible variation across colonies with discovery time, the inflection point, and the maximum biomass of foragers all being significantly correlated with colony size. We suggest that biomass is a solid indicator of how social taxa invest their workforce toward resources and hypothesize ways that invasive fire ants are able to leverage their enormous workforce to dominate novel ecosystems by comparing their foraging and colony mass with co-occurring native species.

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Borowiec, Marek L., Stefan P. Cover, and Christian Rabeling. "The evolution of social parasitism in Formica ants revealed by a global phylogeny." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 38 (September 17, 2021): e2026029118. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026029118.

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Studying the behavioral and life history transitions from a cooperative, eusocial life history to exploitative social parasitism allows for deciphering the conditions under which changes in behavior and social organization lead to diversification. The Holarctic ant genus Formica is ideally suited for studying the evolution of social parasitism because half of its 172 species are confirmed or suspected social parasites, which includes all three major classes of social parasitism known in ants. However, the life history transitions associated with the evolution of social parasitism in this genus are largely unexplored. To test competing hypotheses regarding the origins and evolution of social parasitism, we reconstructed a global phylogeny of Formica ants. The genus originated in the Old World ∼30 Ma ago and dispersed multiple times to the New World and back. Within Formica, obligate dependent colony-founding behavior arose once from a facultatively polygynous common ancestor practicing independent and facultative dependent colony foundation. Temporary social parasitism likely preceded or arose concurrently with obligate dependent colony founding, and dulotic social parasitism evolved once within the obligate dependent colony-founding clade. Permanent social parasitism evolved twice from temporary social parasitic ancestors that rarely practiced colony budding, demonstrating that obligate social parasitism can originate from a facultative parasitic background in socially polymorphic organisms. In contrast to permanently socially parasitic ants in other genera, the high parasite diversity in Formica likely originated via allopatric speciation, highlighting the diversity of convergent evolutionary trajectories resulting in nearly identical parasitic life history syndromes.

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Ulrich, Yuko, Mari Kawakatsu, Christopher K. Tokita, Jonathan Saragosti, Vikram Chandra, Corina E. Tarnita, and Daniel J. C. Kronauer. "Response thresholds alone cannot explain empirical patterns of division of labor in social insects." PLOS Biology 19, no. 6 (June 17, 2021): e3001269. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001269.

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The effects of heterogeneity in group composition remain a major hurdle to our understanding of collective behavior across disciplines. In social insects, division of labor (DOL) is an emergent, colony-level trait thought to depend on colony composition. Theoretically, behavioral response threshold models have most commonly been employed to investigate the impact of heterogeneity on DOL. However, empirical studies that systematically test their predictions are lacking because they require control over colony composition and the ability to monitor individual behavior in groups, both of which are challenging. Here, we employ automated behavioral tracking in 120 colonies of the clonal raider ant with unparalleled control over genetic, morphological, and demographic composition. We find that each of these sources of variation in colony composition generates a distinct pattern of behavioral organization, ranging from the amplification to the dampening of inherent behavioral differences in heterogeneous colonies. Furthermore, larvae modulate interactions between adults, exacerbating the apparent complexity. Models based on threshold variation alone only partially recapitulate these empirical patterns. However, by incorporating the potential for variability in task efficiency among adults and task demand among larvae, we account for all the observed phenomena. Our findings highlight the significance of previously overlooked parameters pertaining to both larvae and workers, allow the formulation of theoretical predictions for increasing colony complexity, and suggest new avenues of empirical study.

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Qiu, H. L., L. H. Lu, Q. X. Shi, C. C. Tu, T. Lin, and Y. R. He. "Differential necrophoric behaviour of the ant Solenopsis invicta towards fungal-infected corpses of workers and pupae." Bulletin of Entomological Research 105, no. 5 (June 17, 2015): 607–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007485315000528.

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AbstractNecrophoric behaviour is critical sanitation behaviour in social insects. However, little is known about the necrophoric responses of workers towards different developmental stages in a colony as well as its underlying mechanism. Here, we show that Solenopsis invicta workers display distinct necrophoric responses to corpses of workers and pupae. Corpses of workers killed by freezing (dead for <1 h) were carried to a refuse pile, but pupal corpses would take at least 1 day to elicit workers’ necrophoric response. Metarhizium anisopliae-infected pupal corpses accelerated the necrophoric behaviour of resident workers, with 47.5% of unaffected corpses and 73.8% infected corpses discarded by 1 day post-treatment). We found that fungus-infected pupal corpses had a higher concentration of fatty acids (palmitic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid) on their surface. We experimentally confirmed that linoleic and oleic acids would elicit a necrophoric response in workers. The appearance of linoleic and oleic acids appeared to be chemical signals involved in recognition of pupal corpses, and M. anisopliae infection could promote the accumulation of fatty acids on surface of pupal corpses resulting in accelerated necrophoric responses of workers.

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Kadochová, Štěpánka, and Jan Frouz. "Thermoregulation strategies in ants in comparison to other social insects, with a focus on Formica rufa." F1000Research 2 (December 19, 2013): 280. http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.2-280.v1.

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Temperature influences every aspect of ant biology, especially metabolic rate, growth and development. Maintenance of high inner nest temperature increases the rate of sexual brood development and thereby increases the colony fitness. Insect societies can achieve better thermoregulation than solitary insects due to the former’s ability to build large and elaborated nests and display complex behaviour. In ants and termites the upper part of the nest, the mound, often works as a solar collector and can also have an efficient ventilation system. Two thermoregulatory strategies could be applied. Firstly the ants use an increased thermal gradient available in the mound for brood relocation. Nurse workers move the brood according to the thermal gradients to ensure the ideal conditions for development. A precise perception of temperature and evolution of temperature preferences are needed to make the correct choices. A second thermoregulatory strategy used by mound nesting ants is keeping a high temperature inside large nests. The unique thermal and insulation properties of the nest material help to maintain stable conditions, which is the case of the Wood ant genus Formica. Ants can regulate thermal loss by moving nest aggregation and alternating nest ventilation. Metabolic heat produced by ant workers or associated micro organisms is an important additional source of heat which helps to maintain thermal homeostasis in the nest.

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Del-Claro, Kleber, and Paulo S. M. Pacheco. "Nestmate Recognition in the Amazonian Myrmecophyte Ant Pseudomyrmex concolor Smith (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)." Sociobiology 62, no. 3 (September 30, 2015): 356. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v62i3.746.

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Nestmate recognition is fundamental to colonial cohesion in social insects, since it allows altruistic behavior towards relatives, recognition of intruders, territorial monopoly and resources defense. In ants, olfactory cues is a key factor in this process. Pseudomyrmex concolor is a highly aggressive ant that defends their host plant Tachigali myrmecophila against herbivores. However, this defense depends on the ant ability to discriminate in order to treat differentially between members of their own colony and intruders . In this study we investigated “whether” and “how” P. concolor recognizes nestmates from non-nestmates. We hypothesized that P. concolor is skillful in recognizing nestmates and tested it in field with experiments using nestmates and non-nestmates. Additionally, to test the efficiency of resident ants against intraspecific competition during colony foundation, we simulate the plant occupation by a competitor queen, introducing non-nestmates queens in plants previously occupied by P. concolor. For the issue of the "how", we hypothesized that the main cue used by this ant in nestmate recognition is olfactory signal. Thus, we tested adaptive threshold model, which predicts that, if the individual odor and colony’s internal template are discrepant enough, the resident nestmate will behave aggressively towards incoming individuals. In this case, we confined nestmates with non-nestmates odors, and then, we reintroduced them in its host plants. In each experiment the frequency of aggressive behaviors were recorded and compared. Results showed that P. concolor recognize and discriminate nestmates from non-nestmates workers (biting and stinging them) and exclude potential competitors queens. Workers reintroduced in their own colony after impregnated with non-familiar odor were treated as non-nestmates. The adaptive threshold hypothesis was confirmed, the main cue used by this ant species in nestmate recognition is olfactory signals.

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Colby, Dee, Lacy Inmon, and Lane Foil. "Red Imported Fire Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Worker Head Widths as an Indicator of Social Form in Louisiana." Journal of Entomological Science 42, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 20–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.18474/0749-8004-42.1.20.

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Classification of red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren, colonies as monogyne or polygyne by using differences in worker size (head widths) was compared to PCR discrimination of alleles for colony social form. Maximum head widths were significantly different between the two social forms, but reliable assignment of social form based on head widths was not possible because of considerable overlap in sizes among ants in the two social forms.

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Castella, G., P. Christe, and M. Chapuisat. "Covariation between colony social structure and immune defences of workers in the ant Formica selysi." Insectes Sociaux 57, no. 2 (February 11, 2010): 233–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-010-0076-3.

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37

Chernenko, Anton, Marta Vidal-Garcia, Heikki Helanterä, and Liselotte Sundström. "Colony take-over and brood survival in temporary social parasites of the ant genus Formica." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 67, no. 5 (February 5, 2013): 727–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1496-7.

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Kadochová, Štěpánka, and Jan Frouz. "Thermoregulation strategies in ants in comparison to other social insects, with a focus on red wood ants (Formica rufa group)." F1000Research 2 (March 21, 2014): 280. http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.2-280.v2.

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Temperature influences every aspect of ant biology, especially metabolic rate, growth and development. Maintenance of high inner nest temperature increases the rate of sexual brood development and thereby increases the colony fitness. Insect societies can achieve better thermoregulation than solitary insects due to the former’s ability to build large and elaborated nests and display complex behaviour. In ants and termites the upper part of the nest, the mound, often works as a solar collector and can also have an efficient ventilation system. Two thermoregulatory strategies could be applied. Firstly the ants use an increased thermal gradient available in the mound for brood relocation. Nurse workers move the brood according to the thermal gradients to ensure the ideal conditions for development. A precise perception of temperature and evolution of temperature preferences are needed to make the correct choices. A second thermoregulatory strategy used by mound nesting ants is keeping a high temperature inside large nests. The unique thermal and insulation properties of the nest material help to maintain stable conditions, which is the case of the Wood ant genus Formica. Ants can regulate thermal loss by moving nest aggregation and alternating nest ventilation. Metabolic heat produced by ant workers or associated micro organisms is an important additional source of heat which helps to maintain thermal homeostasis in the nest.

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Zheng, Zhou, Xin Hu, Yang Xu, Cong Wei, and Hong He. "Bacterial Composition and Diversity of the Digestive Tract of Odontomachus monticola Emery and Ectomomyrmex javanus Mayr." Insects 12, no. 2 (February 17, 2021): 176. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12020176.

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Ponerine ants are generalist predators feeding on a variety of small arthropods, annelids, and isopods; however, knowledge of their bacterial communities is rather limited. This study investigated the bacterial composition and diversity in the digestive tract (different gut sections and the infrabuccal pockets (IBPs)) of two ponerine ant species (Odontomachus monticola Emery and Ectomomyrmex javanus Mayr) distributed in northwestern China using high-throughput sequencing. We found that several dominant bacteria that exist in other predatory ants were also detected in these two ponerine ant species, including Wolbachia, Mesoplasma, and Spiroplasma. Bacterial communities of these two ant species were differed significantly from each other, and significant differences were also observed across their colonies, showing distinctive inter-colony characteristics. Moreover, bacterial communities between the gut sections (crops, midguts, and hindguts) of workers were highly similar within colony, but they were clearly different from those in IBPs. Further, bacterial communities in the larvae of O. monticola were similar to those in the IBPs of workers, but significantly different from those in gut sections. We presume that the bacterial composition and diversity in ponerine ants are related to their social behavior and feeding habits, and bacterial communities in the IBPs may play a potential role in their social life.

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Neumeyer, Rainer, Jürg Sommerhalder, and Stefan Ungricht. "First observation of an ant colony of Formica fuscocinerea Forel, 1874 invaded by the social parasite F. truncorum Fabricius, 1804 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)." Alpine Entomology 5 (June 2, 2021): 23–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/alpento.5.67037.

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In the northern Alps of Switzerland we observed a mixed ant colony of Formica truncorum Fabricius, 1804 and F. fuscocinerea Forel, 1874 at the foot of a schoolhouse wall in the built-up centre of the small town of Näfels (canton of Glarus). Based on the fact that the habitat is favorable only for F. fuscocinerea and that F. truncorum is a notorious temporary social parasite, we conclude that in this case a colony of F. fuscocinerea must have been usurped by F. truncorum. This is remarkable, as it is the first reported case where a colony of F. fuscocinerea has been taken over by a social parasite. We consider the observed unusually small workers of F. truncorum to be a starvation form. This is probably due to the suboptimal urban nest site, as this species typically occurs along the edge of forests or in clearings.

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Cao, Huai Hu, and Yan Mei Zhang. "A Context-Aware Member Clustering Algorithm Based on Ant Colony and Genetic Optimization for P2P Mobile Social Network." Applied Mechanics and Materials 347-350 (August 2013): 2458–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.347-350.2458.

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t is one of important topics in social network research how to form member clustering according to potential social relations by automatic context-aware the user's behavior feature. This paper presents a context-aware mobile P2P social network framework, member clustering model and algorithm. The user's location information, environmental characteristics etc. are introduced to the clustering algorithm, which intelligently cluster to potential P2P social network. The experimental results show that the proposed approach and the algorithm have a higher response speed, load balance and adaptive ability.

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Bockoven, Alison A., Shawn M. Wilder, and Micky D. Eubanks. "Intraspecific Variation among Social Insect Colonies: Persistent Regional and Colony-Level Differences in Fire Ant Foraging Behavior." PLOS ONE 10, no. 7 (July 21, 2015): e0133868. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133868.

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Eriksson, T. H., B. Hölldobler, J. E. Taylor, and J. Gadau. "Correction to: Intraspecific variation in colony founding behavior and social organization in the honey ant Myrmecocystus mendax." Insectes Sociaux 66, no. 3 (April 17, 2019): 503. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00040-019-00699-8.

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Dejean, Alain, Frédéric Petitclerc, Frédéric Azémar, and Vivien Rossi. "Nutrient provisioning of its host myrmecophytic tree by a temporary social parasite of a plant-ant." Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 133, no. 3 (May 4, 2021): 744–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blab050.

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Abstract One of the most advanced ant–plant mutualisms is represented by myrmecophytes sheltering colonies of some plant-ant species in hollow structures called domatia. In turn, the myrmecophytes benefit from biotic protection and sometimes nutrient provisioning (myrmecotrophy). Furthermore, over the course of evolution, some ant species have become social parasites of others. In this general context, we studied the relationship between its host trees and Azteca andreae (Dolichoderinae), a temporary social parasite of the plant-ant Azteca ovaticeps, and, as such, obligatorily associated with myrmecophytic Cecropia obtusa trees (Urticaceae). A first experiment showed that the δ15N values of the young leaves of Cecropia sheltering a mature A. andreae colony were very similar to those for trees sheltering Azteca alfari or A. ovaticeps, two typical Cecropia mutualists for which myrmecotrophy is known. In a second experiment, by injecting a 15N-labelled glycine solution into locusts given as prey to A. andreae colonies, we triggered an increase in δ15N in the young leaves of their host Cecropia. Thus, 15N passed from the prey to the host trees, explaining the outcomes of the first experiment. We discuss these results in light of the notion of ‘by-product benefits’.

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Pruitt, Jonathan N., and Noa Pinter-Wollman. "The legacy effects of keystone individuals on collective behaviour scale to how long they remain within a group." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 282, no. 1814 (September 7, 2015): 20151766. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1766.

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The collective behaviour of social groups is often strongly influenced by one or few individuals, termed here ‘keystone individuals’. We examined whether the influence of keystone individuals on collective behaviour lingers after their departure and whether these lingering effects scale with their tenure in the group. In the social spider, Stegodyphus dumicola , colonies' boldest individuals wield a disproportionately large influence over colony behaviour. We experimentally manipulated keystones' tenure in laboratory-housed colonies and tracked their legacy effects on collective prey capture following their removal. We found that bolder keystones caused more aggressive collective foraging behaviour and catalysed greater inter-individual variation in boldness within their colonies. The longer keystones remained in a colony, the longer both of these effects lingered after their departure. Our data demonstrate that, long after their disappearance, keystones have large and lasting effects on social dynamics at both the individual and colony levels.

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Allen, Hamilton Ross, Patrícia A. Zungoli, Eric P. Benson, and Patrick Gerard. "Nest Emigration Behavior of the Asian Needle Ant, Brachyponera (=Pachycondyla) chinensis Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)." Sociobiology 64, no. 4 (December 27, 2017): 430. http://dx.doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v64i4.1586.

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Ant colonies change nest location in response to physical disturbance, climate fluctuation, and resource availability. During the emigration process, worker recruitment is vital to ensuring that individual colony members are moved to the new nest site. Recruitment methods used during emigration differ between ant species. In a laboratory study, we investigated the recruitment behaviors of the invasive Asian needle ant, Brachyponera (=Pachycondyla) chinensis (Emery), during nest emigration. Subsets of P. chinensis worker ants were subjected to physical nest disturbance, and the recruitment methods and associated behaviors were recorded. Before recruitment to the new nest location began, B. chinensis ants organized into three distinctive groups: queen-tending, brood-tending, and scouting. Once the new nest site was identified, scout ants began physically transporting nestmates into the new harborage. Transport rates increased with time in the first 30 minutes and did not change during the 30to 55 minute interval when brood was transported. However, adult transport rate increased again after brood transport was completed and decreased after 90 minutes. These studies are the first to identify the recruitment methods, division of labor, and social organization behavior of B. chinensis during nest emigration.

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Ogban, Felix U., and Roy Nentui. "Pheromone deposition/updating strategy in a network: using ant colony optimization (ACO) approach." Global Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences 24, no. 2 (December 18, 2019): 215–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/gjpas.v24i2.11.

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The study and understanding of the social behavior of insects has contributed to the definition of some algorithms that are capable of solving several types of optimization problems. The most important and challenging problems that the ants encounters when routing through a network arc, is their ability to searching for the path with a shorter length as well as to minimize the total cost incurred in the process of routing through the network. In this paper, we introduced some features to the existing Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm to help tackle this problem. First, we defined two kinds of pheromone and then we also defined three kinds of heuristic information to guide the searching direction of ants for this bi-criteria problem. Each of the ants uses the heuristic types and the pheromone types in each iteration based on the probability, controlled by two parameters. These two parameters are adaptively adjusted in the process of the algorithm. Second, we used the information of the partial solutions to modify the bias of ants so that inferior choices will be ignored. Finally, we tested the performance of the experimental results of the algorithm in an application under different Deadline constraints and the performance of the algorithm prove to be more promising, for it outperformed the performance of most of the algorithm we downloaded on line.Keywords: Ant Colony Optimization algorithm, Pheromone Deposition, Pheromone Updating strategy, Cost Minimization, Network Routing, Optimization problem.

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Thomas, Melissa L. "Seasonality and colony-size effects on the life-history characteristics of Rhytidoponera metallica in temperate south-eastern Australia." Australian Journal of Zoology 51, no. 6 (2003): 551. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/zo03037.

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In social insects, colony growth is assumed to follow a logistic growth curve, with small, newly founded colonies experiencing exponential growth (ergonomic stage) that slows down with increasing colony size and approaches an asymptote when the colony produces sexuals (reproductive stage). Environmental factors may also influence colony growth, particularly in temperate climates where colder temperatures in winter slow development. However, growth patterns are rarely studied in detail in social insects. In this study, I investigated colony size and seasonality effects on life-history parameters of the ponerine ant Rhytidoponera metallica. I followed the growth of 10 laboratory colonies monthly over two years in conjunction with monthly excavations of 5 field colonies. Colony composition was highly seasonal in both laboratory and field colonies, with pupae and larvae produced only during the warmer months. Males, however, were present in colonies throughout most of the year. An expected logistic growth pattern was found in the majority (4 of 6) of laboratory colonies that had positive growth, one colony followed a Gompertz growth pattern and another a power curve. Two laboratory colonies decreased in size and two colonies didn't change in size. The slowing of growth observed with increasing colony size in the majority of laboratory colonies was related to a decrease in per capita brood production with increasing colony size. Colony size also related to the presence of males: field colonies containing males were significantly larger than field colonies where males were absent. By using a combination of laboratory and field colonies, I was able to obtain information on seasonality of brood and male production, in addition to important demographic data on mortality and natality rates that is difficult to obtain in social insects using only field excavations.

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Berryman, Julia C. "Social Behaviour in a Colony of Domestic Guinea Pigs: Aggression and Dominance." Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 46, no. 2 (April 26, 2010): 200–214. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1978.tb01445.x.

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O'Donnell, Sean, and Robert L. Jeanne. "Notes on an army ant (Eciton burchelli) raid on a social wasp colony (Agelaia yepocapa) in Costa Rica." Journal of Tropical Ecology 6, no. 4 (November 1990): 507–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0266467400004958.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Ant colony social behaviour'

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