Chemical Recruitment for Foraging in Ants (Formicidae) and Termites (Isoptera) : A Revealing Comparison
Joint Authors
Issa, Solange
Jaffe, Klaus
Sainz-Borgo, Cristina
Source
Issue
Vol. 2012, Issue 2012 (31 Dec. 2012), pp.1-11, 11 p.
Publisher
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Publication Date
2011-07-26
Country of Publication
Egypt
No. of Pages
11
Main Subjects
Abstract EN
All termites secrete trail pheromones from their sternal gland, whereas ants use a variety of glands for this purpose.
This and the diversity of chemical compounds that serve as trail pheromones among ants, and the uniformity of chemicals among termite trails, suggest a different evolutionary historical dynamics for the development of chemical mass recruitment in both taxa.
Termites in addition show pheromonal parsimony.
This suggest a single evolutionary origin of pheromone trails in Isoptera, whereas chemical mass recruitment among Formicidae seems to have evolved many times and in different ways.
Despite these very different evolutionary histories, both taxa evolved chemical recruitment systems involving attractants and orientation signals, and at least two divergent decision making system for recruitment.
This evolutionary analogy suggests that chemical mass recruitment is constraint by fundamental physical dynamic laws.
Artificial intelligence including “mass intelligence” and “ant intelligence”, emulates mass recruitment in interacting virtual agents in search of optimal solutions.
This approach, however, has copied only the “Democratic” recruitment dynamics with a single compound pheromone.
Ant and termite evolution shows more sophisticated recruitment dynamics which, if understood properly, will improve our understanding of nature and applications of artificial “swarm intelligence”.
American Psychological Association (APA)
Jaffe, Klaus& Issa, Solange& Sainz-Borgo, Cristina. 2011. Chemical Recruitment for Foraging in Ants (Formicidae) and Termites (Isoptera) : A Revealing Comparison. Psyche،Vol. 2012, no. 2012, pp.1-11.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-491226
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Jaffe, Klaus…[et al.]. Chemical Recruitment for Foraging in Ants (Formicidae) and Termites (Isoptera) : A Revealing Comparison. Psyche No. 2012 (2012), pp.1-11.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-491226
American Medical Association (AMA)
Jaffe, Klaus& Issa, Solange& Sainz-Borgo, Cristina. Chemical Recruitment for Foraging in Ants (Formicidae) and Termites (Isoptera) : A Revealing Comparison. Psyche. 2011. Vol. 2012, no. 2012, pp.1-11.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-491226
Data Type
Journal Articles
Language
English
Notes
Includes bibliographical references
Record ID
BIM-491226