A variable refractory period increases collective performance in noisy environments

Chiara, Violette; Arrufat, Patrick; Jeanson, Raphaël

doi:10.1073/pnas.2115103119

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…cicada brood emergence [5]). Collective cycling in turn requires behaviour to be synchronized across group members [6,7]. These synchronized behavioural oscillations can come about through two basic mechanisms: a global group wide variable that influences each group member or a local interaction between group members with no global connection among them [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational genotypic interactions drive collective behavioural cycles in a social insect

2022

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Many social animals display collective activity cycles based on synchronous behavioural oscillations across group members. A classic example is the colony cycle of army ants, where thousands of individuals undergo stereotypical biphasic behavioural cycles of about one month. Cycle phases coincide with brood developmental stages, but the regulation of this cycle is otherwise poorly understood. Here, we probe the regulation of cycle duration through interactions between brood and workers in an experimentally amenable army ant relative, the clonal raider ant. We first establish that cycle length varies across clonal lineages using long-term monitoring data. We then investigate the putative sources and impacts of this variation in a cross-fostering experiment with four lineages combining developmental, morphological and automated behavioural tracking analyses. We show that cycle length variation stems from variation in the duration of the larval developmental stage, and that this stage can be prolonged not only by the clonal lineage of brood (direct genetic effects), but also of the workers (indirect genetic effects). We find similar indirect effects of worker line on brood adult size and, conversely (but more surprisingly), indirect genetic effects of the brood on worker behaviour (walking speed and time spent in the nest).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational genotypic interactions drive collective behavioural cycles in a social insect

2022

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“…For example, collective oscillations in swarms of bacteria [ 3 ], duetting songbirds [ 4 ] and human musicians playing in a string quartet [ 5 ] are all social contexts that rely on the synchronization of behaviour. Arthropods in particular provide numerous examples of social synchronization, such as fireflies flashing in unison [ 6 ], social spiders moving on their web [ 7 , 8 ], groups of honeybees periodically cooling their hive [ 9 ] and the chorusing of katydids [ 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synchronized locomotion can improve spatial accessibility inside ant colonies

Doering,

Lee,

Dalnoki-Veress

2023

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Synchronization is a conspicuous form of collective behaviour that is of crucial importance in numerous biological systems. Ant colonies from the genera Leptothorax and Temnothorax form small colonies, typically made up of only a few hundred workers, and exhibit a form of synchronized behaviour where workers inside colonies' nests become active together in rhythmic cycles that have a period of approximately 20–200 min. However, it is not currently known if these synchronized rhythms of locomotion confer any functional benefit to colonies. By using a combination of multiple image analysis techniques, we show that inactive Leptothorax ants can act as immobile obstacles to moving ants, and that synchronized activity has the potential to reduce the likelihood that individual ants will encounter regions of immobile obstacles that impede access to portions of the nest. We demonstrate qualitatively similar findings using a computational model of confined active particles with oscillating activity.

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Revealing the mechanism and function underlying pairwise temporal coupling in collective motion

Amichay,

Li,

Nagy

et al. 2024

Nat Commun

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Coordinated motion in animal groups has predominantly been studied with a focus on spatial interactions, such as how individuals position and orient themselves relative to one another. Temporal aspects have, by contrast, received much less attention. Here, by studying pairwise interactions in juvenile zebrafish (Danio rerio)—including using immersive volumetric virtual reality (VR) with which we can directly test models of social interactions in situ—we reveal that there exists a rhythmic out-of-phase (i.e., an alternating) temporal coordination dynamic. We find that reciprocal (bi-directional) feedback is both necessary and sufficient to explain this emergent coupling. Beyond a mechanistic understanding, we find, both from VR experiments and analysis of freely swimming pairs, that temporal coordination considerably improves spatial responsiveness, such as to changes in the direction of motion of a partner. Our findings highlight the synergistic role of spatial and temporal coupling in facilitating effective communication between individuals on the move.

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A variable refractory period increases collective performance in noisy environments

Cited by 5 publications

References 38 publications

Intergenerational genotypic interactions drive collective behavioural cycles in a social insect

Intergenerational genotypic interactions drive collective behavioural cycles in a social insect

Synchronized locomotion can improve spatial accessibility inside ant colonies

Revealing the mechanism and function underlying pairwise temporal coupling in collective motion

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