IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms8729.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ant groups optimally amplify the effect of transiently informed individuals

Author

Listed:
  • Aviram Gelblum

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Itai Pinkoviezky

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Ehud Fonio

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Abhijit Ghosh

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Nir Gov

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • Ofer Feinerman

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

Abstract

To cooperatively transport a large load, it is important that carriers conform in their efforts and align their forces. A downside of behavioural conformism is that it may decrease the group’s responsiveness to external information. Combining experiment and theory, we show how ants optimize collective transport. On the single-ant scale, optimization stems from decision rules that balance individuality and compliance. Macroscopically, these rules poise the system at the transition between random walk and ballistic motion where the collective response to the steering of a single informed ant is maximized. We relate this peak in response to the divergence of susceptibility at a phase transition. Our theoretical models predict that the ant-load system can be transitioned through the critical point of this mesoscopic system by varying its size; we present experiments supporting these predictions. Our findings show that efficient group-level processes can arise from transient amplification of individual-based knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Aviram Gelblum & Itai Pinkoviezky & Ehud Fonio & Abhijit Ghosh & Nir Gov & Ofer Feinerman, 2015. "Ant groups optimally amplify the effect of transiently informed individuals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8729
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8729
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8729
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms8729?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tsvetomira Radeva & Anna Dornhaus & Nancy Lynch & Radhika Nagpal & Hsin-Hao Su, 2017. "Costs of task allocation with local feedback: Effects of colony size and extra workers in social insects and other multi-agent systems," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-29, December.
    2. Jonathan E Ron & Itai Pinkoviezky & Ehud Fonio & Ofer Feinerman & Nir S Gov, 2018. "Bi-stability in cooperative transport by ants in the presence of obstacles," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Guibin Sun & Rui Zhou & Zhao Ma & Yongqi Li & Roderich Groß & Zhang Chen & Shiyu Zhao, 2023. "Mean-shift exploration in shape assembly of robot swarms," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Daniele Vilone & John Realpe-Gómez & Giulia Andrighetto, 2021. "Evolutionary advantages of turning points in human cooperative behaviour," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-15, February.
    5. Pascal P Klamser & Pawel Romanczuk, 2021. "Collective predator evasion: Putting the criticality hypothesis to the test," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-21, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8729. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.