Solé R V, Bonabeau E, Delgado J, Fernández P, Marín J
Complex Systems Research Group, Department of Physics, FEN, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Campus Nord, Mòdul B4, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.
Artif Life. 2000 Summer;6(3):219-26. doi: 10.1162/106454600568843.
Army ant colonies display complex foraging raid patterns involving thousands of individuals communicating through chemical trails. In this article we explore, by means of a simple search algorithm, the properties of these trails in order to test the hypothesis that their structure reflects an optimized mechanism for exploring and exploiting food resources. The raid patterns of three army ant species, Eciton hamatum, Eciton burchelli, and Eciton rapax, are analyzed. The respective diets of these species involve large but rare, small but common, and a combination of large but rare and small but common food sources. Using a model proposed by Deneubourg et al. [4], we simulate the formation of raid patterns in response to different food distributions. Our results indicate that the empirically observed raid patterns maximize return on investment, that is, the amount of food brought back to the nest per unit of energy expended, for each of the diets. Moreover, the values of the parameters that characterize the three optimal pattern-generating mechanisms are strikingly similar. Therefore the same behavioral rules at the individual level can produce optimal colony-level patterns. The evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed.
行军蚁蚁群展现出复杂的觅食突袭模式，涉及数千只蚂蚁通过化学踪迹进行交流。在本文中，我们借助一种简单的搜索算法来探究这些踪迹的特性，以检验这样一种假设，即其结构反映了一种用于探索和利用食物资源的优化机制。我们分析了三种行军蚁物种，即哈氏行军蚁（Eciton hamatum）、布氏行军蚁（Eciton burchelli）和拉氏行军蚁（Eciton rapax）的突袭模式。这些物种各自的食物包括大型但稀少、小型但常见以及大型但稀少与小型但常见食物来源的组合。利用德内布尔格等人[4]提出的一个模型，我们模拟了针对不同食物分布的突袭模式的形成。我们的结果表明，对于每种食物类型，根据经验观察到的突袭模式使投资回报率最大化，即每消耗单位能量带回巢中的食物量。此外，表征三种最优模式生成机制的参数值惊人地相似。因此，个体层面相同的行为规则能够产生最优的蚁群层面模式。我们还讨论了这些发现的进化意义。
