title: Ant trophallactic networks: simultaneous measurement of interaction patterns and food dissemination.
abstract: Eusocial societies and ants, in particular, maintain tight nutritional regulation at both individual and collective levels. The mechanisms that underlie this control are far from trivial since, in these distributed systems, information about the global supply and demand is not available to any single individual. Here we present a novel technique for non-intervening frequent measurement of the food load of all individuals in an ant colony, including during trophallactic events in which food is transferred by mouth-to-mouth feeding. Ants are imaged using a dual camera setup that produces both barcode-based identification and fluorescence measurement of labeled food. This system provides detailed measurements that enable one to quantitatively study the adaptive food distribution network. To demonstrate the capabilities of our method, we present sample observations that were unattainable using previous techniques, and could provide insight into the mechanisms underlying food exchange.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Efrat
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Greenwald
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics Services Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Segre
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Ofer
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Feinerman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior