2019/07/05 by Subekshya Bidari, Orit Peleg, Bidari, Subekshya +3
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Dynamical Systems (math.DS) #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Mathematics #Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior #Insect and Pesticide Research #Plant and animal studies #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1907.03061
openalex publication_date 2019/07/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
To effectively forage in natural environments, organisms must adapt to\nchanges in the quality and yield of food sources across multiple timescales.\nIndividuals foraging in groups act based on both their private observations and\nthe opinions of their neighbors. How do these information sources interact in\nchanging environments? We address this problem in the context of honeybee\nswarms, showing inhibitory social interactions help maintain adaptivity and\nconsensus needed for effective foraging. Individual and social interactions of\na mathematical swarm model shape the nutrition yield of a group foraging from\nfeeders with temporally switching food quality. Social interactions improve\nforaging from a single feeder if temporal switching is fast or feeder quality\nis low. When the swarm chooses from multiple feeders, the most effective form\nof social interaction is direct switching, whereby bees flip the opinion of\nnestmates foraging at lower yielding feeders. Model linearization shows that\neffective social interactions increase the fraction of the swarm at the correct\nfeeder (consensus) and the rate at which bees reach that feeder (adaptivity).\nOur mathematical framework allows us to compare a suite of social inhibition\nmechanisms, suggesting experimental protocols for revealing effective swarm\nforaging strategies in dynamic environments.\n