Colony entropy-Allocation of goods in ant colonies

PLoS Computational Biology
Efrat GreenwaldOfer Feinerman

Abstract

Allocation of goods is a key feature in defining the connection between the individual and the collective scale in any society. Both the process by which goods are to be distributed, and the resulting allocation to the members of the society may affect the success of the population as a whole. One of the most striking natural examples of a highly successful cooperative society is the ant colony which often acts as a single superorganism. In particular, each individual within the ant colony has a "communal stomach" which is used to store and share food with the other colony members by mouth to mouth feeding. Sharing food between communal stomachs allows the colony as a whole to get its food requirements and, more so, allows each individual within the colony to reach its nutritional intake target. The vast majority of colony members do not forage independently but obtain their food through secondary interactions in which food is exchanged between individuals. The global effect of this exchange is not well understood. To gain better understanding into this process we used fluorescence imaging to measure how food from a single external source is distributed and mixed within a Camponotus sanctus ant colony. Using entropic measures t...Continue Reading

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Citations

Aug 8, 2020·Ecology and Evolution·Yeisson GutiérrezChris R Smith
Dec 2, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Sang Hyun ChoiNigel Goldenfeld
Dec 17, 2019·Current Biology : CB·Enikő CsataAudrey Dussutour

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
fluorescence imaging

Software Mentioned

BugTag
Networkx ’ Package for Python
Networkx
openCV

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