Abstract
Collective behavior is ubiquitous throughout nature. Many systems, from brains to ant colonies, work without central control. Collective behavior is regulated by interactions among the individual participants such as neurons or ants. Interactions create feedback that produce the outcome, the behavior that we observe: Brains think and remember, ant colonies collect food or move nests, flocks of birds turn, human societies develop new forms of social organization. But the processes by which interactions produce outcomes are as diverse as the behavior itself. Just as convergent evolution has led to organs, such as the eye, that are similar in function but are based on different physiological processes, so it has led to forms of collective behavior that appear similar but arise from different social processes. An ecological perspective can help us to understand the dynamics of collective behavior and how it works.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler FR, Gordon DM (1992) Information collection and spread by networks of patrolling ants. Am Nat 40:373–400
Altmann J (1974) Observational study of behavior: sampling methods. Behaviour 49:227–266. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853974X00534
Barad K (2007) Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press, Durham
Cadotte MW, McMahon SM, Fukami T (eds) (2006) Conceptual ecology and invasion biology: reciprocal approaches to nature. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4925-0
Cannon WB (1915) Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage. D. Appleton & Company, New York
Chandrasekhar A, Gordon DM, Navlakha S (2018) A distributed algorithm to maintain and repair the trail networks of arboreal ants. Sci Rep 8:9297. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27160-3
Chowell D, Napier J, Gupta R, Anderson KS, Maley CC, Sayres MAW (2017) Modeling the subclonal evolution of cancer cell populations. Cancer Res 78(830–839):2017
Daniels BC, Ellison CJ, Krakauer DC, Flack JC (2016) Quantifying collectivity. Curr Opin Neurobiol 37:106–113
Davidson JD, Gordon DM (2017) Spatial organization and interactions of harvester ants during foraging activity. J R Soc Interface. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2017.0413
Davidson JD, Arauco-Aliaga RP, Crow S, Gordon DM, Goldman MS (2016) Effect of interactions between harvester ants on forager decisions. Front Ecol Evol. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2016.00115
Farine DR, Aplin LM, Sheldon BC, Hoppitt W (2012) Social network analysis of mixed-species flocks: exploring the structure and evolution of interspecific social behaviour. Anim Behav 84:1271–1277
Friedman DA, Pilko A, Skowronska-Krawczyk D, Krasinska K, Parker JW, Hirsh J, Gordon DM (2018) The role of dopamine in the collective regulation of foraging in harvester ants. IScience 8:283–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2018.09.001
Friedman DA, Greene MJ, Gordon DM (2019) The physiology of forager hydration and variation among harvester ant Pogonomyrmex barbatus colonies in collective foraging behavior. Sci Rep 9(1):5126. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41586-3
Gordon DM (1986) The dynamics of the daily round of the harvester ant colony. Anim Behav 34:1402–1419
Gordon DM (1987) Group-level dynamics in harvester ants: young colonies and the role of patrolling. Anim Behav 35:833–843
Gordon DM (1989) Dynamics of task switching in harvester ants. Anim Behav 38:194–204
Gordon DM (1995) The expandable network of ant exploration. Anim Behav 50:995–1007
Gordon DM (1996) The organization of work in social insect colonies. Nature 380:121–124
Gordon DM (2007) Control without hierarchy. Nature 4468:143
Gordon DM (2010) Ant encounters: interaction networks and colony behavior. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. (Primers in complex systems)
Gordon DM (2012) The dynamics of foraging trails in the tropical arboreal ant, Cephalotes goniodontus. PLoS ONE 7(11):e50472. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050472
Gordon DM (2013) The rewards of restraint in the collective regulation of foraging by harvester ant colonies. Nature 498:91–93. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12137
Gordon DM (2014) The ecology of collective behavior. PLoS Biol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001805
Gordon DM (2015) From division of labor to collective behavior. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 70:1113–1115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-015-2045-3
Gordon DM (2016) The evolution of the algorithms for collective behavior. Cell Syst 3:514–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2016.10.013
Gordon DM (2017) Local regulation of trail networks in the arboreal turtle ant, Cephalotes goniodontus. Am Nat 190:E156–E169. https://doi.org/10.1086/693418
Gordon DM (2018) The ecology of collective behavior in ants. Annu Rev Entomol 13(2):1–16
Gordon DM (2019) The ecology of collective behavior in ants. Annual Review of Entomology 64:35–50. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-011118-111923
Gordon DM, Paul REH, Thorpe K (1993) What is the function of encounter patterns in ant colonies? Anim Behav 45:1083–1100
Gordon DM, Holmes S, Nacu S (2008) The short-term regulation of foraging in harvester ants. Behav Ecol 19(1):217–222. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arm125
Gordon DM, Guetz A, Greene M, Holmes S (2011) Colony variation in the collective regulation of foraging by harvester ants. Behav Ecol 22:429–435. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arq218
Greene MJ, Gordon DM (2003) Cuticular hydrocarbons inform task decisions. Nature 423:432
Greene MJ, Pinter-Wollman N, Gordon DM (2013) Interactions with combined chemical cues inform harvester ant foragers’ decisions to leave the nest in search of food. PLoS ONE 8(1):e52219. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052219
Haraway DJ (2016) Staying with the trouble: making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, Durham
Leonard NE (2014) Multi-agent system dynamics: bifurcation and behavior of animal groups. Annu Rev Control 38:171–183
Lewontin RC (1994) Inside and outside: gene, environment and organism. Heinz Werner Lecture Series. Clark University Press, Worcester
Maley CC, Aktipis A, Graham TA, Sottoriva A, Boddy AM, Janiszewska M, Silva AS, Gerlinger M, Yuan Y, Pienta KJ, Anderson KS, Gatenby R, Swanton C, Posada D, Wu C-I, Schiffman JD, Hwang ES, Polyak K, Anderson ARA, Brown JS, Greaves M, Shibata D (2017) Classifying the evolutionary and ecological features of neoplasms. Nat Rev Cancer 17:605–619
Marshall JAR, Bogacz R, Dornhaus A, Planqué R, Kovacs T, Franks NR (2009) On optimal decision-making in brains and social insect colonies. J R Soc Interface 40:1065–1074. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2008.0511
Martin P, Bateson PPG (1993) Measuring behaviour: an introductory guide, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 223
Miller MB, Bassler BL (2001) Quorum sensing in bacteria. Ann Rev Microbiol 55:165–199. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.micro.55.1.165
Nicholson DJ, Dupre J (eds) (2018) Everything flows. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Pagliara R, Gordon DM, Leonard NE (2018) Regulation of harvester ant foraging as a closed-loop excitable system. PLoS Comput Biol 14(12):e1006200. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006200
Pinter-Wollman N, Bala A, Merrell A, Queirolo J, Stumpe MC, Holmes S, Gordon DM (2013) Harvester ants use interactions to regulate forager activation and availability. Anim Behav 86(1):197–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.05.012
Pless E, Queirolo J, Pinter-Wollman N, Crow SP, Allen K, Mathur MB, Gordon DM (2015) Interactions increase forager availability and activity in harvester ants. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141971
Prabhakar B, Dektar KN, Gordon DM (2012) The regulation of ant colony foraging activity without spatial information. PLoS Comput Biol 8(8):e1002670. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002670
Sasaki T, Pratt SC (2018) The psychology of superorganisms: collective decision making by insect societies. Annu Rev Entomol 63:259–275
Sultan SE (2015) Organism and environment: ecological development, niche construction and adaption. Oxford University Press, New York
Wilson EO (1962) Chemical communication among workers of the fire ant Solenopsis saevissima (Fr. Smith) 2. An information analysis of the odour trail. Anim Behav 10:148–158
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is part of the Special Issue on Quantifying Collectivity.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gordon, D.M. Measuring collective behavior: an ecological approach. Theory Biosci. 140, 353–360 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-019-00302-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-019-00302-5