Fonck C, Jaffé K
Departmento de Biología de Organismos, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Venezuela.
Physiol Behav. 1996 Apr-May;59(4-5):713-9. doi: 10.1016/0031-9384(95)02028-4.
Measurements of oxygen consumption from ant colonies of various sizes of Odontomachus bauri, Camponotus rufipes and Zacryptocerus depressus showed a complex and nonlinear relationship between colony size and energy consumption per unit mass. Results show that at certain critical colony sizes, the colonies energy consumption is larger than the sum of the average energy requirement of the individually workers, and near maximal colony sizes, the energy consumption of the colony per unit mass tends exponentially to that of the average individual worker. We propose that social complexity is related to energy consumption in a discontinuous manner and is bound by both, negentropy content of a society and social optimization mechanisms.
对不同大小的巴氏齿猛蚁、红足弓背蚁和凹头隐角蚁蚁群的耗氧量测量表明，蚁群大小与单位质量能量消耗之间存在复杂的非线性关系。结果表明，在某些临界蚁群大小下，蚁群的能量消耗大于个体工蚁平均能量需求之和，而在接近最大蚁群大小时，单位质量蚁群的能量消耗呈指数趋势趋近于个体工蚁的平均能量消耗。我们提出，社会复杂性与能量消耗以不连续的方式相关，并且受到社会的负熵含量和社会优化机制的限制。
