Kinetics of aggregate formation in social insects.

A model for the kinetics of aggregation in social insects which accounts for stochastic effects arising from individual variability and covers both the early and the mature stages of the process is developed. Different aggregation scenarios are studied, depending on the degree of cooperativity and the mean population density. It is shown that under certain conditions, the system evolves slowly to a single cluster incorporating all individuals, or to two coexisting clusters of similar sizes.