Collective clog control: Optimizing traffic flow in confined biological and robophysical excavation

Aguilar, Jeffrey; Monaenkova, Daria; Linevich, Vadim; Savoie, William; Dutta, Bahnisikha; Kuan, Hui-Shun; Betterton, Meredith D.; Goodisman, Michael A. D.; Goldman, Daniel I.

doi:10.1126/science.aan3891

Cited by 51 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…In addition to P. simplicicornis , there are a few observations of this behavior in social mole-rats [39] and army ants [40]. Another mechanism, observed in fire ants, is individual idleness, which limits the number of excavators at the face of tunnels and reduces the frequency of clogs [37]. The higher proportion of waiting behaviors by R. tibialis is consistent with this idea.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…Second, the body shape of kalotermitids is more elongated than that of rhinotermitids (Fig. S5), which limits turning around inside narrow tunnels [37]. Because of this characteristic, P. simplicicornis may do better with the kicking type of tunneling.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When a group of animals moves within a narrow and confined space, they face a problem of high-density clogs which affect task performance and collective outcomes [27,37]. The bucket brigade is one solution, because excavators do not need to pass each other [38].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parameter tuning facilitates the evolution of diverse tunneling patterns in termites

Mizumoto

Pratt

2019

Preprint

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9The nest structures built by social insects are complex group-level patterns that emerge from 10 interactions among individuals following simple behavioral rules. The theory of complex systems 11 predicts that there is no simple one-to-one relationship between variations in collective patterns and 12 variation in individual behaviors; therefore, it is essential to know how actual behavior evolves to 13 change pattern formation. Here we demonstrate that the evolutionary divergence of termite tunneling 14 patterns is achieved by quantitative tuning of shared behavioral rules, rather than the acquisition of 15 novel behaviors. We compared tunnel formation between two closely related species, Reticulitermes 16 tibialis and Heterotermes aureus, and found that H. aureus builds more highly branched tunnels than 17 R. tibialis. Our behavioral analysis and data-based modeling revealed that these species share the same 18 behavioral repertoire, but a quantitative difference in the probability of sidewall excavation leads to 19 diverse tunneling patterns. In contrast, we also found that Paraneotermes simplicicornis, which 20 evolved tunneling independently, possesses a distinct behavioral repertoire, but shows convergence of 21 branching patterns with R. tibialis. These results elucidate the complex relationship between individual 22 behavior and group-level patterns; in some cases, distinct behavioral rules can produce similar group-23 level patterns, but in others, a common rule set can yield distinct patterns via parameter tuning. The 24 evolutionary process of collective behavior is flexible and much more complex than we can infer from 25 group-level patterns alone. 26 27 29 Among these, nest structures built by social insects play an important role in their ecological success 30 by providing shelter and favorable microenvironments [2,3]. A wide variety of structures has evolved, 31 adapted to each species' typical environment [4,5]. This leads to the fundamental question of what is 32 the behavioral mechanism underlying the evolution of diverse nest structures? In collective building, 33 group-level structures emerge from local interactions among individuals following simple behavioral 34 rules [1,6]. Thus, different collective outcomes may be obtained either by differentiated behavioral 35 rules or by regulation of a common set of rules to modify the interactions [7]. Theoretical studies have 36 supported the latter model; they predict that diverse nest structures can be explained by parameter 37tuning, which is the quantitative modification of a single set of behavioral rules shared among species, 38 in ants [8,9], termites [10-12] and paper wasps [13,14]. However, because of the lack of comparative 39 studies, there is no empirical evidence for the sharing of behavioral rules across species, and thus the 40 key factor creating interspecific variation in patterns remains unknown. 41Because evolutionary changes of nest structures occur through the modification of building 42 processes, it is essential to clarify the ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parameter tuning facilitates the evolution of diverse tunneling patterns in termites

Mizumoto

Pratt

2019

Preprint

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“…Taken together, while currently available methods cover a wide range of experimental scenarios, the ability to accurately track the behavior of animals in groups remains one of the major hurdles in the field. As a result, much of the experimental work still relies on manual annotation, or on partially automated analysis pipelines that require considerable manual effort to correct computer-generated annotations (see Aguilar et al, 2018 ; Gelblum et al, 2015 ; Leitner and Dornhaus, 2019 ; Valentini et al, 2020 for recent examples). In principle, marked animals can also be tracked by general-purpose image-based trackers such as idTracker.ai, supplementing the pixel information of the animals’ appearances with artificial features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

anTraX, a software package for high-throughput video tracking of color-tagged insects

Gal

Saragosti

Kronauer

2020

eLife

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Recent years have seen a surge in methods to track and analyze animal behavior. Nevertheless, tracking individuals in closely interacting, group-living organisms remains a challenge. Here, we present anTraX, an algorithm and software package for high-throughput video tracking of color-tagged insects. anTraX combines neural network classification of animals with a novel approach for representing tracking data as a graph, enabling individual tracking even in cases where it is difficult to segment animals from one another, or where tags are obscured. The use of color tags, a well-established and robust method for marking individual insects in groups, relaxes requirements for image size and quality, and makes the software broadly applicable. anTraX is readily integrated into existing tools and methods for automated image analysis of behavior to further augment its output. anTraX can handle large-scale experiments with minimal human involvement, allowing researchers to simultaneously monitor many social groups over long time periods.

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“…The simulating results, such as the "faster-is slower" phenomenon also can be verified by experiments on the different group (e.g people, vehicles, ants, sheep, microbial populations, etc.) [4,16,17,18,19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escape dynamics based on bounded rationality

Wang

Jiang

2019

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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The bounded rationality plays a vital role in the collective behavior of the evacuation process. Also investigating human behavior in such an extreme situation is a continuing concern within social psychology. In this paper, we construct a cellular automaton (CA) model for the escape dynamics, and the bounded rational behavior induced by heterogeneous information is introduced. The non-trivial behavior shows in the replicator dynamics method with mean field approximation, where people's perception of the distribution of population and velocity is reduced to an average value in a certain direction. Analyzing the escape efficiency shows that under the premise of rationality, the bounded rational strategy can get higher performance. Interestingly, a quantifiable meta-stable state appears in the escape process, and the escape time is power-law dependent on system size.

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Collective clog control: Optimizing traffic flow in confined biological and robophysical excavation

Cited by 51 publications

References 38 publications

Parameter tuning facilitates the evolution of diverse tunneling patterns in termites

Parameter tuning facilitates the evolution of diverse tunneling patterns in termites

anTraX, a software package for high-throughput video tracking of color-tagged insects

Escape dynamics based on bounded rationality

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