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Doering GN, Lee CL, Dalnoki-Veress K. Synchronized locomotion can improve spatial accessibility inside ant colonies. Proc Biol Sci 2023; 290:20231805. [PMID: 38018098 PMCID: PMC10685122 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1805] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023] Open
Abstract
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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Affiliation(s)
| | - Carmen L. Lee
- Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
| | - Kari Dalnoki-Veress
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1
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2
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de Castro P, Urbina F, Norambuena A, Guzmán-Lastra F. Sequential epidemic-like spread between agglomerates of self-propelled agents in one dimension. Phys Rev E 2023; 108:044104. [PMID: 37978653 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.108.044104] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Accepted: 09/13/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
Motile organisms can form stable agglomerates such as cities or colonies. In the outbreak of a highly contagious disease, the control of large-scale epidemic spread depends on factors like the number and size of agglomerates, travel rate between them, and disease recovery rate. While the emergence of agglomerates permits early interventions, it also explains longer real epidemics. In this work, we study the spread of susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) epidemics (or any sort of information exchange by contact) in one-dimensional spatially structured systems. By working in one dimension, we establish a necessary foundation for future investigation in higher dimensions and mimic micro-organisms in narrow channels. We employ a model of self-propelled particles which spontaneously form multiple clusters. For a lower rate of stochastic reorientation, particles have a higher tendency to agglomerate and therefore the clusters become larger and less numerous. We examine the time evolution averaged over many epidemics and how it is affected by the existence of clusters through the eventual recovery of infected particles before reaching new clusters. New terms appear in the SIR differential equations in the last epidemic stages. We show how the final number of ever-infected individuals depends nontrivially on single-individual parameters. In particular, the number of ever-infected individuals first increases with the reorientation rate since particles escape sooner from clusters and spread the disease. For higher reorientation rate, travel between clusters becomes too diffusive and the clusters too small, decreasing the number of ever-infected individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pablo de Castro
- ICTP-South American Institute for Fundamental Research - Instituto de Física Teórica da UNESP, Rua Dr. Bento Teobaldo Ferraz 271, 01140-070 São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Felipe Urbina
- Centro Multidisciplinario de Física, Universidad Mayor, Huechuraba, 8580745 Santiago, Chile
| | - Ariel Norambuena
- Centro Multidisciplinario de Física, Universidad Mayor, Huechuraba, 8580745 Santiago, Chile
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3
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Richardson TO, Stroeymeyt N, Crespi A, Keller L. Two simple movement mechanisms for spatial division of labour in social insects. Nat Commun 2022; 13:6985. [PMID: 36379933 PMCID: PMC9666475 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34706-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2018] [Accepted: 11/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Many animal species divide space into a patchwork of home ranges, yet there is little consensus on the mechanisms individuals use to maintain fidelity to particular locations. Theory suggests that animal movement could be based upon simple behavioural rules that use local information such as olfactory deposits, or global strategies, such as long-range biases toward landmarks. However, empirical studies have rarely attempted to distinguish between these mechanisms. Here, we perform individual tracking experiments on four species of social insects, and find that colonies consist of different groups of workers that inhabit separate but partially-overlapping spatial zones. Our trajectory analysis and simulations suggest that worker movement is consistent with two local mechanisms: one in which workers increase movement diffusivity outside their primary zone, and another in which workers modulate turning behaviour when approaching zone boundaries. Parallels with other organisms suggest that local mechanisms might represent a universal method for spatial partitioning in animal populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas O. Richardson
- grid.9851.50000 0001 2165 4204Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland ,grid.5337.20000 0004 1936 7603School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Nathalie Stroeymeyt
- grid.9851.50000 0001 2165 4204Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland ,grid.5337.20000 0004 1936 7603School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Alessandro Crespi
- grid.5333.60000000121839049Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob), Institute of Bioengineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Laurent Keller
- grid.9851.50000 0001 2165 4204Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Vaes O, Detrain C. Colony specificity and starvation-driven changes in activity patterns of the red ant Myrmica rubra. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0273087. [PMID: 35960741 PMCID: PMC9374231 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Although the activity levels of insect societies are assumed to contribute to their ergonomic efficiency, most studies of the temporal organization of ant colony activity have focused on only a few species. Little is known about the variation in activity patterns across colonies and species, and in different environmental contexts. In this study, the activity patterns of colonies of the red ant Myrmica rubra were characterized over 15 consecutive days. The main goals were to evaluate the colony specificity of the activity patterns and the impact of food deprivation on these patterns. We found that the average activity level varied across colonies and remained consistent over 1 week, providing evidence that the activity level is a colony-specific life trait. Furthermore, all colonies applied an energy-saving strategy, decreasing their average levels of activity inside the nest, when starved. Starvation induced no consistent change in the activity level outside of the nest. An analysis of activity time series revealed activity bursts, with nestmates being active (or inactive) together, the amplitudes of which reflected the ants’ degree of synchronization. Food deprivation increased the amplitude and number of these activity bursts. Finally, wavelet analyses of daily activity patterns revealed no evidence of any periodicity of activity bouts occurring inside or outside of the nest. This study showed that M. rubra ant colonies are characterized by specific activity levels that decrease in response to starvation with the adoption of an energy-saving strategy. In addition, our results help to understand the functional value associated with synchronized and/or periodic fluctuation in activity, which has been debated for years.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oscar Vaes
- Unit of Social Ecology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
- * E-mail:
| | - Claire Detrain
- Unit of Social Ecology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
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5
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Doering GN, Drawert B, Lee C, Pruitt JN, Petzold LR, Dalnoki-Veress K. Noise resistant synchronization and collective rhythm switching in a model of animal group locomotion. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2022; 9:211908. [PMID: 35291326 PMCID: PMC8905150 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.211908] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2021] [Accepted: 02/11/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Biology is suffused with rhythmic behaviour, and interacting biological oscillators often synchronize their rhythms with one another. Colonies of some ant species are able to synchronize their activity to fall into coherent bursts, but models of this phenomenon have neglected the potential effects of intrinsic noise and interspecific differences in individual-level behaviour. We investigated the individual and collective activity patterns of two Leptothorax ant species. We show that in one species (Leptothorax sp. W), ants converge onto rhythmic cycles of synchronized collective activity with a period of about 20 min. A second species (Leptothorax crassipilis) exhibits more complex collective dynamics, where dominant collective cycle periods range from 16 min to 2.8 h. Recordings that last 35 h reveal that, in both species, the same colony can exhibit multiple oscillation frequencies. We observe that workers of both species can be stimulated by nest-mates to become active after a refractory resting period, but the durations of refractory periods differ between the species and can be highly variable. We model the emergence of synchronized rhythms using an agent-based model informed by our empirical data. This simple model successfully generates synchronized group oscillations despite the addition of noise to ants' refractory periods. We also find that adding noise reduces the likelihood that the model will spontaneously switch between distinct collective cycle frequencies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Grant Navid Doering
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1
| | - Brian Drawert
- National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC 28804, USA
| | - Carmen Lee
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1
| | - Jonathan N. Pruitt
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1
| | - Linda R. Petzold
- Department of Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
| | - Kari Dalnoki-Veress
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1
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Gordon DM. Movement, Encounter Rate, and Collective Behavior in Ant Colonies. ANNALS OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 114:541-546. [PMID: 34512857 PMCID: PMC8423106 DOI: 10.1093/aesa/saaa036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2020] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Spatial patterns of movement regulate many aspects of social insect behavior, because how workers move around, and how many are there, determines how often they meet and interact. Interactions are usually olfactory; for example, in ants, by means of antennal contact in which one worker assesses the cuticular hydrocarbons of another. Encounter rates may be a simple outcome of local density: a worker experiences more encounters, the more other workers there are around it. This means that encounter rate can be used as a cue for overall density even though no individual can assess global density. Encounter rate as a cue for local density regulates many aspects of social insect behavior, including collective search, task allocation, nest choice, and traffic flow. As colonies grow older and larger, encounter rates change, which leads to changes in task allocation. Nest size affects local density and movement patterns, which influences encounter rate, so that nest size and connectivity influence colony behavior. However, encounter rate is not a simple function of local density when individuals change their movement in response to encounters, thus influencing further encounter rates. Natural selection on the regulation of collective behavior can draw on variation within and among colonies in the relation of movement patterns, encounter rate, and response to encounters.
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Sclocco A, Ong SJY, Pyay Aung SY, Teseo S. Integrating real-time data analysis into automatic tracking of social insects. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2021; 8:202033. [PMID: 33959356 PMCID: PMC8074946 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.202033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2020] [Accepted: 03/03/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Automatic video tracking has become a standard tool for investigating the social behaviour of insects. The recent integration of computer vision in tracking technologies will probably lead to fully automated behavioural pattern classification within the next few years. However, many current systems rely on offline data analysis and use computationally expensive techniques to track pre-recorded videos. To address this gap, we developed BACH (Behaviour Analysis maCHine), a software that performs video tracking of insect groups in real time. BACH uses object recognition via convolutional neural networks and identifies individually tagged insects via an existing matrix code recognition algorithm. We compared the tracking performances of BACH and a human observer (HO) across a series of short videos of ants moving in a two-dimensional arena. We found that BACH detected ant shapes only slightly worse than the HO. However, its matrix code-mediated identification of individual ants only attained human-comparable levels when ants moved relatively slowly, and fell when ants walked relatively fast. This happened because BACH had a relatively low efficiency in detecting matrix codes in blurry images of ants walking at high speeds. BACH needs to undergo hardware and software adjustments to overcome its present limits. Nevertheless, our study emphasizes the possibility of, and the need for, further integrating real-time data analysis into the study of animal behaviour. This will accelerate data generation, visualization and sharing, opening possibilities for conducting fully remote collaborative experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alessio Sclocco
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- Netherlands eScience Center, Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands
| | | | - Sai Yan Pyay Aung
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
| | - Serafino Teseo
- School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
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8
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Ant behavioral maturation is mediated by a stochastic transition between two fundamental states. Curr Biol 2021; 31:2253-2260.e3. [PMID: 33730550 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.038] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2020] [Revised: 03/27/2020] [Accepted: 05/11/2020] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
Abstract
The remarkable ecological success of social insects is often attributed to their advanced division of labor, which is closely associated with temporal polyethism in which workers transition between different tasks as they age. Young nurses are typically found deep within the nest where they tend to the queen and the brood, whereas older foragers are found near the entrance and outside the nest.1-3 However, the individual-level maturation dynamics remain poorly understood because following individuals over relevant timescales is difficult; hence, previous experimental studies used same-age cohort designs.4-15 To address this, we used an automated tracking system to follow >500 individuals over >100 days and constructed networks of physical contacts to provide a continuous measure of worker social maturity. These analyses revealed that most workers occupied one of two steady states, namely a low-maturity nurse state and a high-maturity forager state, with the remaining workers rapidly transitioning between these states. There was considerable variation in the age at transition, and, surprisingly, the transition probability was age independent. This suggests that the transition is largely stochastic rather than a hard-wired age-dependent physiological change. Despite the variation in timing, the transition dynamics were highly stereotyped. Transitioning workers moved from the nurse to the forager state according to an S-shaped trajectory, and only began foraging after completing the transition. Stochastic switching, which occurs in many other biological systems, may provide ant colonies with robustness to extrinsic perturbations by allowing the colony to decouple its division of labor from its demography.
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9
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Guo X, Chen J, Azizi A, Fewell J, Kang Y. Dynamics of social interactions, in the flow of information and disease spreading in social insects colonies: Effects of environmental events and spatial heterogeneity. J Theor Biol 2020; 492:110191. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2020.110191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2019] [Revised: 12/08/2019] [Accepted: 02/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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10
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Doering GN, Sheehy KA, Lichtenstein JLL, Drawert B, Petzold LR, Pruitt JN. Sources of intraspecific variation in the collective tempo and synchrony of ant societies. Behav Ecol 2019; 30:1682-1690. [PMID: 31723317 PMCID: PMC6838655 DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arz135] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2019] [Revised: 06/03/2019] [Accepted: 07/17/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Populations of independently oscillating agents can sometimes synchronize. In the context of animal societies, conspicuous synchronization of activity is known in some social insects. However, the causes of variation in synchrony within and between species have received little attention. We repeatedly assessed the short-term activity cycle of ant colonies (Temnothorax rugatulus) and monitored the movements of individual workers and queens within nests. We detected persistent differences between colonies in the waveform properties of their collective activity oscillations, with some colonies consistently oscillating much more erratically than others. We further demonstrate that colony crowding reduces the rhythmicity (i.e., the consistent timing) of oscillations. Workers in both erratic and rhythmic colonies spend less time active than completely isolated workers, but workers in erratic colonies oscillate out of phase with one another. We further show that the queen's absence can impair the ability of colonies to synchronize worker activity and that behavioral differences between queens are linked with the waveform properties of their societies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Grant Navid Doering
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Kirsten A Sheehy
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - James L L Lichtenstein
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - Brian Drawert
- Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Asheville, Asheville, NC, USA
| | - Linda R Petzold
- Department of Computer Science, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering II Room 2355, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - Jonathan N Pruitt
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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11
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Stroeymeyt N, Grasse AV, Crespi A, Mersch DP, Cremer S, Keller L. Social network plasticity decreases disease transmission in a eusocial insect. Science 2019; 362:941-945. [PMID: 30467168 DOI: 10.1126/science.aat4793] [Citation(s) in RCA: 137] [Impact Index Per Article: 27.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2018] [Accepted: 10/22/2018] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Animal social networks are shaped by multiple selection pressures, including the need to ensure efficient communication and functioning while simultaneously limiting disease transmission. Social animals could potentially further reduce epidemic risk by altering their social networks in the presence of pathogens, yet there is currently no evidence for such pathogen-triggered responses. We tested this hypothesis experimentally in the ant Lasius niger using a combination of automated tracking, controlled pathogen exposure, transmission quantification, and temporally explicit simulations. Pathogen exposure induced behavioral changes in both exposed ants and their nestmates, which helped contain the disease by reinforcing key transmission-inhibitory properties of the colony's contact network. This suggests that social network plasticity in response to pathogens is an effective strategy for mitigating the effects of disease in social groups.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathalie Stroeymeyt
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Anna V Grasse
- Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), Am Campus 1, A-3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria
| | - Alessandro Crespi
- Biorobotics Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Danielle P Mersch
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Sylvia Cremer
- Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), Am Campus 1, A-3400 Klosterneuburg, Austria.
| | - Laurent Keller
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
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12
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Gernat T, Rao VD, Middendorf M, Dankowicz H, Goldenfeld N, Robinson GE. Automated monitoring of behavior reveals bursty interaction patterns and rapid spreading dynamics in honeybee social networks. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018; 115:1433-1438. [PMID: 29378954 PMCID: PMC5816157 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1713568115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Social networks mediate the spread of information and disease. The dynamics of spreading depends, among other factors, on the distribution of times between successive contacts in the network. Heavy-tailed (bursty) time distributions are characteristic of human communication networks, including face-to-face contacts and electronic communication via mobile phone calls, email, and internet communities. Burstiness has been cited as a possible cause for slow spreading in these networks relative to a randomized reference network. However, it is not known whether burstiness is an epiphenomenon of human-specific patterns of communication. Moreover, theory predicts that fast, bursty communication networks should also exist. Here, we present a high-throughput technology for automated monitoring of social interactions of individual honeybees and the analysis of a rich and detailed dataset consisting of more than 1.2 million interactions in five honeybee colonies. We find that bees, like humans, also interact in bursts but that spreading is significantly faster than in a randomized reference network and remains so even after an experimental demographic perturbation. Thus, while burstiness may be an intrinsic property of social interactions, it does not always inhibit spreading in real-world communication networks. We anticipate that these results will inform future models of large-scale social organization and information and disease transmission, and may impact health management of threatened honeybee populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tim Gernat
- Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Swarm Intelligence and Complex Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Vikyath D Rao
- Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
| | - Martin Middendorf
- Swarm Intelligence and Complex Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Harry Dankowicz
- Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
| | - Nigel Goldenfeld
- Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
| | - Gene E Robinson
- Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801;
- Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
- Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
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13
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How Behaviour and the Environment Influence Transmission in Mobile Groups. TEMPORAL NETWORK EPIDEMIOLOGY 2017. [PMCID: PMC7123459 DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-5287-3_2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
The movement of individuals living in groups leads to the formation of physical interaction networks over which signals such as information or disease can be transmitted. Direct contacts represent the most obvious opportunities for a signal to be transmitted. However, because signals that persist after being deposited into the environment may later be acquired by other group members, indirect environmentally-mediated transmission is also possible. To date, studies of signal transmission within groups have focused on direct physical interactions and ignored the role of indirect pathways. Here, we use an agent-based model to study how the movement of individuals and characteristics of the signal being transmitted modulate transmission. By analysing the dynamic interaction networks generated from these simulations, we show that the addition of indirect pathways speeds up signal transmission, while the addition of physically-realistic collisions between individuals in densely packed environments hampers it. Furthermore, the inclusion of spatial biases that induce the formation of individual territories, reveals the existence of a trade-off such that optimal signal transmission at the group level is only achieved when territories are of intermediate sizes. Our findings provide insight into the selective pressures guiding the evolution of behavioural traits in natural groups, and offer a means by which multi-agent systems can be engineered to achieve desired transmission capabilities.
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