Gräwer Johannes, Ronellenfitsch Henrik, Mazza Marco G, Katifori Eleni
Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
Phys Rev E. 2017 Aug;96(2-1):022111. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.96.022111. Epub 2017 Aug 7.
Trophallaxis, the regurgitation and mouth to mouth transfer of liquid food between members of eusocial insect societies, is an important process that allows the fast and efficient dissemination of food in the colony. Trophallactic systems are typically treated as a network of agent interactions. This approach, though valuable, does not easily lend itself to analytic predictions. In this work we consider a simple trophallactic system of randomly interacting agents with finite carrying capacity, and calculate analytically and via a series of simulations the global food intake rate for the whole colony as well as observables describing how uniformly the food is distributed within the nest. Our model and predictions provide a useful benchmark to assess to what level the observed food uptake rates and efficiency in food distribution is due to stochastic effects or specific trophallactic strategies by the ant colony. Our work also serves as a stepping stone to describing the collective properties of more complex trophallactic systems, such as those including division of labor between foragers and workers.
交哺现象，即真社会性昆虫群体成员之间液体食物的反刍和口对口传递，是一个重要过程，它能使食物在群体中快速有效地传播。交哺系统通常被视为一个主体相互作用的网络。这种方法虽然有价值，但不容易进行分析预测。在这项工作中，我们考虑一个具有有限承载能力的随机相互作用主体的简单交哺系统，并通过一系列模拟进行分析计算，得出整个群体的全球食物摄取率以及描述食物在巢穴内分布均匀程度的可观测量。我们的模型和预测提供了一个有用的基准，以评估观察到的食物摄取率和食物分配效率在何种程度上是由于随机效应或蚁群特定的交哺策略。我们的工作也为描述更复杂的交哺系统的集体特性奠定了基础，比如那些包括觅食者和工蚁之间分工的系统。
