title: Emergence of intercolonial variation in termite shelter tube patterns and prediction of its underlying mechanism.
abstract: Building behaviours occur in various organisms from bacteria to humans. Social insects build various structures such as large nests and underground galleries, achieved by self-organization. Structures built by social insects have recently been demonstrated to vary widely in size and shape within a species, even under the same environmental conditions. However, little is known about how intraspecific variation in structures emerges from collective behaviours. Here we show that the colony variation of structures can be generated by simply changing two behavioural parameters of group members, even with the same building algorithm. Our laboratory experiment of termite shelter tube construction demonstrated clear intercolonial variation, and a two-dimensional lattice model showed that it can be attributed to the extent of positive feedback and the number of individuals engaged in building. This study contributes to explaining the great diversity of structures emerging from collective building in social insects.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture , Kyoto University , Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Nobuaki
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6731-8684
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mizumoto
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture , Kyoto University , Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Kazuya
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9475-6807
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture , Kyoto University , Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-9099-6694
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsuura
keywords: collective behaviour; colony variation; nest building; self-organization; social insects; stigmergy