When being flexible matters: Ecological underpinnings for the evolution of collective flexibility and task allocation.

ABSTRACT: Task allocation is a central feature of collective organization. Living collective systems, such as multicellular organisms or social insect colonies, have evolved diverse ways to allocate individuals to different tasks, ranging from rigid, inflexible task allocation that is not adjusted to changing circumstances to more fluid, flexible task allocation that is rapidly adjusted to the external environment. While the mechanisms underlying task allocation have been intensely studied, it remains poorly understood whether differences in the flexibility of task allocation can be viewed as adaptive responses to different ecological contexts—for example, different degrees of temporal variability. Motivated by this question, we develop an analytically tractable mathematical framework to explore the

SUBMITTER: Staps M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9170069 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature