Dynamic Polyethism and Competition for Tasks in Threshold Reinforcement Models of Social Insects

In this paper we study the dynamics of task division in threshold reinforcement models of social insect societies. Our work extends other models in order to include several factors that influence the behavior of real insect colonies. Main extensions of our model are variable demands for work, age-dependent thresholds and finite life span of the individuals. It is shown how these factors influence the degree of task specialization of the individuals in a colony. Moreover, we show that the introduction of a threshold-dependent competition process between the individuals during task selection leads to the occurrence of specialists and differentiation between individuals as an emergent phenomenon that depends on the colony size. This result can help to explain the proximate mechanisms that lead to specialization in large insect colonies. Our results have implications for the fields of multi-agent systems, robotics, and nature inspired scheduling where threshold response models are used for control and regulation tasks.

[1]  Ling Li,et al.  Emergent Specialization in Swarm Systems , 2002, IDEAL.

[2]  T. Seeley.  The Wisdom of the Hive , 1995 .

[3]  O. Kittithreerapronchai,et al.  Do ants paint trucks better than chickens? Markets versus response thresholds for distributed dynamic scheduling , 2003, The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03..

[4]  W J.Y.,et al.  Dynamic Model of Optimal Age Polyethism in Social Insects under Stable and Fluctuating Environments , 1998 .

[5]  J. Erber,et al.  Tactile learning and the individual evaluation of the reward in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) , 1999, Journal of Comparative Physiology A.

[6]  G. Robinson.  Regulation of division of labor in insect societies. , 1992, Annual review of entomology.

[7]  D N,et al.  Flexible Division of Labor Mediated by Social Interactions in an Insect Colony — a Simulation Model , 1999 .

[8]  G. Robinson,et al.  Social inhibition and the regulation of temporal polyethism in honey bees. , 2001, Journal of theoretical biology.

[9]  Stig W Omholt,et al.  The hive bee to forager transition in honeybee colonies: the double repressor hypothesis. , 2003, Journal of theoretical biology.

[10]  Guy Theraulaz,et al.  Task differentiation in Polistes wasp colonies: a model for self-organizing groups of robots , 1991 .

[11]  G. Robinson,et al.  Differences in performance on a reversal learning test and division of labor in honey bee colonies , 2000, Animal Cognition.

[12]  Guy Theraulaz,et al.  Response Threshold Model of Division of Labour in a Ponerine Ant , 1999 .

[13]  Brian R. Johnson,et al.  Organization of work in the honeybee: a compromise between division of labour and behavioural flexibility , 2003, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[14]  Julia Krüger,et al.  Influence of Gene Action Across Different Time Scales on Behavior , 2002, Science.

[15]  Michael J. B. Krieger,et al.  The call of duty: Self-organised task allocation in a population of up to twelve mobile robots , 2000, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[16]  G. Robinson,et al.  Influence of Gene Action Across Different Time Scales on Behavior , 2002, Science.

[17]  E. Bonabeau,et al.  Quantitative study of the fixed threshold model for the regulation of division of labour in insect societies , 1996, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[18]  Thomas D. Seeley,et al.  Adaptive significance of the age polyethism schedule in honeybee colonies , 1982, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

[19]  Guy Theraulaz,et al.  Dynamic Scheduling and Division of Labor in Social Insects , 2000, Adapt. Behav..

[20]  J. Deneubourg,et al.  Emergent polyethism as a consequence of increased colony size in insect societies. , 2002, Journal of theoretical biology.

[21]  Guy Theraulaz,et al.  Dominance orders in animal societies: The self-organization hypothesis revisited , 1999, Bulletin of mathematical biology.

[22]  Naug,et al.  Flexible division of labor mediated by social interactions in an insect colony-a simulation model , 1999, Journal of theoretical biology.

[23]  E. Bonabeau,et al.  Fixed response thresholds and the regulation of division of labor in insect societies , 1998 .

[24]  Jean-Arcady Meyer,et al.  Adaptive Behavior , 2005 .

[25]  Erik V. Nordheim,et al.  Productivity in a social wasp: per capita output increases with swarm size , 1996 .

[26]  G. Theraulaz,et al.  Response threshold reinforcements and division of labour in insect societies , 1998, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[27]  Jean-Louis Deneubourg,et al.  Information Processing in Social Insects , 1999, Birkhäuser Basel.

[28]  Ana B Sendova-Franks,et al.  The role of competition in task switching during colony emigration in the ant Leptothorax albipennis , 2002, Animal Behaviour.

[29]  Alcherio Martinoli,et al.  Efficiency and robustness of threshold-based distributed allocation algorithms in multi-agent systems , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[30]  Stephen F. Smith,et al.  Wasp-like Agents for Distributed Factory Coordination , 2004, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[31]  I. Karsai,et al.  Productivity, individual-level and colony-level flexibility, and organization of work as consequences of colony size. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[32]  Gene E. Robinson,et al.  Social control of division of labor in honey bee colonies , 1999 .

[33]  N. R. Franks,et al.  Division of labour and seasonality in the ant Leptothorax albipennis: worker corpulence and its influence on behaviour , 2000, Animal Behaviour.