A PARALLEL DISTRIBUTED MODEL OF THE BEHAVIOR OF ANT COLONIES

Members of an ant colony perform a variety of tasks outside the nest, such as foraging and nest maintenance work. The number of ants actively performing each task changes, because workers switch from one task to another and because workers are sometimes active, sometimes inactive. In field experiments with harvester ants (Gordon, 1986, Anim. Behav. 34, 1402-1419, 1987, Anim. Behav. 35, 833-834), a perturbation that directly affects only the number of workers engaged in one task, causes changes in the numbers engaged in other activities. These dynamics must be the outcome of interactions among individuals; an ant cannot be expected to assess and respond to colony-level changes of behaviour. Here we present a parallel distributed model of the processes regulating changes in numbers of workers engaged in various tasks. The model is based on a Hopfield net, but differs from conventional Hopfield models in that when a unit or ant changes state, it changes its interaction patterns. Simulation results resemble experimental results; perturbations of one activity propagate to others. Depending on the pattern of interactions among worker groups, the distribution of active workers in different tasks either settles into a single, global attractor, or shows the dynamics associated with a landscape containing multiple attractors. © 1992 Academic Press Limited.