Self-organized discrimination of resources.

ABSTRACT: When selecting a resource to exploit, an insect colony must take into account at least two constraints: the resource must be abundant enough to sustain the whole group, but not too large to limit exploitation costs, and risks of conflicts with other colonies. Following recent results on cockroaches and ants, we introduce here a behavioral mechanism that satisfies these two constraints. Individuals simply modulate their probability to switch to another resource as a function of the local density of conspecifics locally detected. As a result, the individuals gather at the smallest resource that can host the whole group, hence reducing competition and exploitation costs while fulfilling the overall group's needs. Our analysis reveals that the group becomes better at discriminating between sim

SUBMITTER: Campo A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3097225 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature