Spatial patterns in ant colonies.
The origins of large-scale spatial patterns in biology have been an important source of theoretical speculation since the pioneering work by Turing (1952) on the chemical basis of morphogenesis. Knowing how these patterns emerge and their functional role is important to our understanding of the evolution of biocomplexity and the role played by self organization. However, so far, conclusive evidence for local activation-long-range inhibition mechanisms in real biological systems has been elusive. Here a well-defined experimental and theoretical analysis of the pattern formation dynamics exhibited by clustering behavior in ant colonies is presented. These experiments and a simple mathematical model show that these colonies do indeed use this type of mechanism. All microscopic variables have been measured and provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, for this type of self-organized behavior in complex biological systems, supporting early conjectures about its role in the organization of insect societies.
Theraulaz
Guy
G
Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Cognition Animale, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Formation de Recherche en Evolution 2382, Université Paul Sabatier, 118 Route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse Cédex 4, France. theraula@cict.fr
Bonabeau
Eric
E
Nicolis
Stamatios C
SC
Solé
Ricard V
RV
Fourcassié
Vincent
V
Blanco
Stéphane
S
Fournier
Richard
R
Joly
Jean-Louis
JL
Fernández
Pau
P
Grimal
Anne
A
Dalle
Patrice
P
Deneubourg
Jean-Louis
JL
D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D007700:Kinetics; D009024:Morphogenesis; D011156:Population Density; D012919:Social Behavior; D013997:Time Factors