Negative feedback in ants: crowding results in less trail pheromone deposition

Czaczkes, Tomer J.; Grüter, Christoph; Ratnieks, Francis L. W.

doi:10.1098/rsif.2012.1009

Cited by 60 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…This effect can be countered by negative feedback from overcrowding at a food source, which results in an equal distribution of foragers across multiple food sources or the quick reallocation of the majority of foragers to a superior food source (Grüter et al, 2012). Negative feedback can also come from encounters with other foragers on a trail, where greater crowding leads to less trail pheromone deposition (Czaczkes et al, 2013), or from repellant trail pheromones used as "no entry" signals marking unrewarding paths (Robinson et al, 2005).…”

Section: Negative Feedback In Other Social Insect Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The anti-waggle dance: use of the stop signal as negative feedback

Kietzman

Visscher

2015

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Numerous activities within honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies rely on feedback loops for organization at the group level. Classic examples of these self-organizing behaviors occur during foraging and swarm nest site selection. The waggle dance provides positive feedback, promoting foraging at a specific location or increased scouting at a potential nest site. Rather less well known than the waggle dance is the stop signal, a short vibration often delivered while butting against a dancing bee. It is currently best understood as a counter to the waggle dance, offering negative feedback toward the advertised foraging location or nest site. When the stop signal is received by a waggle dancer she is more likely to terminate her dance early and retire from the dance floor. Bees that experienced danger or overcrowding at a food source are more likely to perform the stop signal upon their return to the colony, resulting in an inhibition of foraging at that location. During a swarm's nest site selection process, scout bees that visited a different site than the one being advertised are more likely to stop-signal the waggle dancer than are scouts that had visited the same site. Over time, the scout bees build recruitment to a single site until a quorum is reached and the swarm can move to it. The balance between the positive feedback from the waggle dance and the negative feedback from the stop signal allows for a more sensitive adjustment of response from the colony as a unit. Many of the processes associated with the feedback loops organizing a honey bee colony's activities are in striking parallel to other systems, such as intercellular interactions involved in motor neuron function.

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Section: Negative Feedback In Other Social Insect Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The anti-waggle dance: use of the stop signal as negative feedback

Kietzman

Visscher

2015

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Because the chance of an ant to follow a specific pheromone trail at a bifurcation is proportional to the relative amount of pheromone on either side of the bifurcation [9,10], modulation of pheromone deposition strongly influences collective decision-making, and thus colony success [7]. Pheromone deposition is therefore modulated according to factors which impact on foraging success, such as resource quality, colony need and perceived path use [7,11,12]. However, reliance solely on trail pheromones may be risky, as accidentally depositing pheromone inappropriately could result in an erroneous information cascade [13,14], and indeed, behavioural rules are in place to avoid such events [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ants adjust their pheromone deposition to a changing environment and their probability of making errors

Czaczkes

Heınze

2015

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Animals must contend with an ever-changing environment. Social animals, especially eusocial insects such as ants and bees, rely heavily on communication for their success. However, in a changing environment, communicated information can become rapidly outdated. This is a particular problem for pheromone trail using ants, as once deposited pheromones cannot be removed. Here, we study the response of ant foragers to an environmental change. Ants were trained to one feeder location, and the feeder was then moved to a different location. We found that ants responded to an environmental change by strongly upregulating pheromone deposition immediately after experiencing the change. This may help maintain the colony's foraging flexibility, and allow multiple food locations to be exploited simultaneously. Our treatment also caused uncertainty in the foragers, by making their memories less reliable. Ants which had made an error but eventually found the food source upregulated pheromone deposition when returning to the nest. Intriguingly, ants on their way towards the food source downregulated pheromone deposition if they were going to make an error. This may suggest that individual ants can measure the reliability of their own memories and respond appropriately.

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“…Thus, responding too rapidly to current conditions may be maladaptive at a collective level. This may help explain why foraging ants make use of information on multiple time frames, from real-time trail use information via encounter rates, through use over the last hours via trail pheromones, to use over the previous days via home-range markings [34,[63][64][65].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Composite collective decision-making

Czaczkes

Iglhaut

et al. 2015

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Individual animals are adept at making decisions and have cognitive abilities, such as memory, which allow them to hone their decisions. Social animals can also share information. This allows social animals to make adaptive grouplevel decisions. Both individual and collective decision-making systems also have drawbacks and limitations, and while both are well studied, the interaction between them is still poorly understood. Here, we study how individual and collective decision-making interact during ant foraging. We first gathered empirical data on memory-based foraging persistence in the ant Lasius niger. We used these data to create an agent-based model where ants may use social information (trail pheromones), private information (memories) or both to make foraging decisions. The combined use of social and private information by individuals results in greater efficiency at the group level than when either information source was used alone. The modelled ants couple consensus decision-making, allowing them to quickly exploit high-quality food sources, and combined decision-making, allowing different individuals to specialize in exploiting different resource patches. Such a composite collective decision-making system reaps the benefits of both its constituent parts. Exploiting such insights into composite collective decision-making may lead to improved decision-making algorithms.

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Negative feedback in ants: crowding results in less trail pheromone deposition

Cited by 60 publications

References 43 publications

The anti-waggle dance: use of the stop signal as negative feedback

The anti-waggle dance: use of the stop signal as negative feedback

Ants adjust their pheromone deposition to a changing environment and their probability of making errors

Composite collective decision-making

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