D. M. Gordon, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Stanford University,
USA
Email: gordon@ants.stanford.edu
How does a colony allocate the appropriate number of ants to the tasks it
must perform, and how is this done in the absence of a central coordinating
mechanism? This problem is similar to the optimization of task distribution
in human engineered parallel distributed systems (PDS), such as interacting
robots or microprocessors. Much can be gained by bringing engineering
knowledge to the investigation of colony behavior, and biological
inspiration to the design of PDS.
We show that the parameters of a theoretical model of task allocation in
ant colonies can be estimated from empirical data, and that the equilibrium
distribution of the model is close to the task distribution of a laboratory
ant colony. We also show that the deterministic model does not behave very
differently from a stochastic counterpart, even for small colonies. We
suggest that colony size may have a strong influence on colony behavior,
both on the speed of response to environmental change, and on the relative
importance of environment and social interaction in determining task
allocation.