Ant trophallactic networks: simultaneous measurement of interaction patterns and food dissemination

Eusocial societies and ants, in particular, maintain tight nutritional regulation at both individual and collective levels. The mechanisms that underlie this control are far from trivial since, in these distributed systems, information about the global supply and demand is not available to any singl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2015-07, Vol.5 (1), p.12496-12496, Article 12496
Main Authors: Greenwald, Efrat, Segre, Enrico, Feinerman, Ofer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/57
639/766/747
96/34
Animals
Ants - physiology
Feeding Behavior - physiology
Food
Humanities and Social Sciences
Information systems
multidisciplinary
Nutrition
Science
Social Behavior
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Summary:Eusocial societies and ants, in particular, maintain tight nutritional regulation at both individual and collective levels. The mechanisms that underlie this control are far from trivial since, in these distributed systems, information about the global supply and demand is not available to any single individual. Here we present a novel technique for non-intervening frequent measurement of the food load of all individuals in an ant colony, including during trophallactic events in which food is transferred by mouth-to-mouth feeding. Ants are imaged using a dual camera setup that produces both barcode-based identification and fluorescence measurement of labeled food. This system provides detailed measurements that enable one to quantitatively study the adaptive food distribution network. To demonstrate the capabilities of our method, we present sample observations that were unattainable using previous techniques and could provide insight into the mechanisms underlying food exchange.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep12496