Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants.
Ants, termites and humans often form well-organized and highly efficient trails between different locations. Yet the microscopic traffic rules responsible for this organization and efficiency are not fully understood. In previous experimental studies with leaf-cutting ants (Atta colombica), a set of...
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doaj-50a0d6617a174b1dbf8ef6f340435ae82020-11-25T01:53:40ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582018-10-011410e100652310.1371/journal.pcbi.1006523Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants.Daniel StrömbomAudrey DussutourAnts, termites and humans often form well-organized and highly efficient trails between different locations. Yet the microscopic traffic rules responsible for this organization and efficiency are not fully understood. In previous experimental studies with leaf-cutting ants (Atta colombica), a set of local priority rules were isolated and it was proposed that these rules govern the temporal and spatial organization of the traffic on the trails. Here we introduce a model based on these priority rules to investigate whether they are sufficient to produce traffic similar to that observed in the experiments on both a narrow and a wider trail. We establish that the model is able to reproduce key characteristics of the traffic on the trails. In particular, we show that the proposed priority rules induce de-synchronization into clusters of inbound and outbound ants on a narrow trail, and that priority-type dependent segregated traffic emerges on a wider trail. Due to the generic nature of the proposed priority rules we speculate that they may be used to model traffic organization in a variety of other ant species.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6198993?pdf=render |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Daniel Strömbom Audrey Dussutour |
spellingShingle |
Daniel Strömbom Audrey Dussutour Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. PLoS Computational Biology |
author_facet |
Daniel Strömbom Audrey Dussutour |
author_sort |
Daniel Strömbom |
title |
Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. |
title_short |
Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. |
title_full |
Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. |
title_fullStr |
Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. |
title_sort |
self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
series |
PLoS Computational Biology |
issn |
1553-734X 1553-7358 |
publishDate |
2018-10-01 |
description |
Ants, termites and humans often form well-organized and highly efficient trails between different locations. Yet the microscopic traffic rules responsible for this organization and efficiency are not fully understood. In previous experimental studies with leaf-cutting ants (Atta colombica), a set of local priority rules were isolated and it was proposed that these rules govern the temporal and spatial organization of the traffic on the trails. Here we introduce a model based on these priority rules to investigate whether they are sufficient to produce traffic similar to that observed in the experiments on both a narrow and a wider trail. We establish that the model is able to reproduce key characteristics of the traffic on the trails. In particular, we show that the proposed priority rules induce de-synchronization into clusters of inbound and outbound ants on a narrow trail, and that priority-type dependent segregated traffic emerges on a wider trail. Due to the generic nature of the proposed priority rules we speculate that they may be used to model traffic organization in a variety of other ant species. |
url |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6198993?pdf=render |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT danielstrombom selforganizedtrafficviapriorityrulesinleafcuttingants AT audreydussutour selforganizedtrafficviapriorityrulesinleafcuttingants |
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