Spatial Patterns in Ant Colonies

The origins of large-scale spatial patterns in biology have been an important source of theoretical speculation since the pioneering work by Turing (1952) on the chemical basis of morphogenesis. Knowing how these patterns emerge and their functional role is important to our understanding of the evol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2002-07, Vol.99 (15), p.9645-9649
Main Authors: Theraulaz, Guy, Bonabeau, Eric, Nicolis, Stamatios C., Solé, Ricard V., Fourcassié, Vincent, Blanco, Stéphane, Fournier, Richard, Joly, Jean-Louis, Fernández, Pau, Grimal, Anne, Dalle, Patrice, Deneubourg, Jean-Louis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Animals
Ants
Ants - physiology
Biological Sciences
Cemeteries
Insect behavior
Insect colonies
Insect reproduction
Insects
Kinetics
Mathematical models
Modeling
Morphogenesis
Nonlinear Sciences
Parametric models
Physical Sciences
Physics
Population Density
Social Behavior
Social insects
Time Factors
Trajectories
Worker insects
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Summary:The origins of large-scale spatial patterns in biology have been an important source of theoretical speculation since the pioneering work by Turing (1952) on the chemical basis of morphogenesis. Knowing how these patterns emerge and their functional role is important to our understanding of the evolution of biocomplexity and the role played by self organization. However, so far, conclusive evidence for local activation-long-range inhibition mechanisms in real biological systems has been elusive. Here a well-defined experimental and theoretical analysis of the pattern formation dynamics exhibited by clustering behavior in ant colonies is presented. These experiments and a simple mathematical model show that these colonies do indeed use this type of mechanism. All microscopic variables have been measured and provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, for this type of self-organized behavior in complex biological systems, supporting early conjectures about its role in the organization of insect societies.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.152302199