A real-time feedback system stabilises the regulation of worker reproduction under various colony sizes.

ABSTRACT: Social insects demonstrate adaptive behaviour for a given colony size. Remarkably, most species do this even without visual information in a dark environment. However, how they achieve this is yet unknown. Based on individual trait expression, an agent-based simulation was used to identify an explicit mechanism for understanding colony size dependent behaviour. Through repeated physical contact between the queen and individual workers, individual colony members monitor the physiological states of others, reflecting such contact information in their physiology and behaviour. Feedback between the sensing of physiological states and the corresponding behaviour patterns leads to self-organisation with colonies shifting according to their size. We showed (1) the queen can exhibit adaptive behav

SUBMITTER: Adejumo S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10075462 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature