Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
Curr Biol. 2022 Feb 7;32(3):645-653.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.12.013. Epub 2022 Jan 6.
Social groups often need to overcome differences in individual interests and knowledge to reach consensus decisions. Here, we combine experiments and modeling to study conflict resolution in emigrating ant colonies during binary nest selection. We find that cohesive emigration, without fragmentation, is achieved only by intermediate-sized colonies. We then impose a conflict regarding the desired emigration target between colony subgroups. This is achieved using an automated selective gate system that manipulates the information accessible to each ant. Under this conflict, we find that individuals concede their potential benefit to promote social consensus. In particular, colonies resolve the conflict imposed by a persistent minority through "majority concession," wherein a majority of ants that hold first-hand knowledge regarding the superior quality nest choose to reside in the inferior one. This outcome is unlikely in social groups of selfish individuals and emphasizes the importance of group cohesion in eusocial societies. VIDEO ABSTRACT.
社会群体通常需要克服个体利益和知识的差异，以达成共识决策。在这里，我们结合实验和建模来研究二元巢穴选择中迁徙蚁群中的冲突解决。我们发现，只有中等大小的蚁群才能实现没有分裂的凝聚力迁徙。然后，我们在蚁群亚群之间引入了关于期望迁徙目标的冲突。这是通过使用自动选择门系统来实现的，该系统可以操纵每个蚂蚁可获取的信息。在这种冲突下，我们发现个体为了促进社会共识而放弃了自己的潜在利益。具体来说，殖民地通过“多数让步”来解决由少数派持续存在所带来的冲突，即在拥有关于优质巢穴的第一手知识的大多数蚂蚁中，选择居住在较差的巢穴中的蚂蚁。这种结果在自私个体的社会群体中不太可能出现，这强调了群体凝聚力在真社会性社会中的重要性。
