Models of information flow in ant foraging: the benefits of both attractive and repulsive signals

Summary

Models of ant foraging and recruitment behaviour have demonstrated how simple algorithms can produce complex foraging patterns. In the absence of hierarchical control, self-organisation enables a colony to establish a foraging strategy, through the interaction of ants using simple signals that indicate success in foraging. In this paper we investigate a model of ant foraging, and demonstrate how the effectiveness of the foraging strategy of a colony can be increased by reducing the persistence of foraging signals. In addition we investigate the theoretical possibility that ants might employ “negative” signals to indicate their failure in foraging. Such behaviour has neither been recorded nor refuted in real ant species and remains an intriguing possibility, since we can demonstrate how this can be overwhelmingly the most effective strategy.