Swarming Strategies for Cooperative Species

✍ Scribed by F. SAFFRE; J.L. DENEUBOURG

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 486 KB
• Volume: 214
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5193
• DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.2001.2472

✦ Synopsis

In this paper, we propose a model to investigate the relative e$ciency of simple swarming strategies based on the interplay between spontaneous and recruitment-based emigration. We conduct a dynamical study of the model which combines inverse density dependence, saturation e!ects and induced vs. di!usion-like population transfer. The in#uence of the most relevant parameters is explored on a systematic basis, and transition values for which qualitative changes occur in the system's behaviour are given. The model is then used to study colonization of a multiple sites environment, as well as confrontation between species featuring di!erent swarming strategies. Simulation results indicate that cooperative organisms should have an interest in evolving recruitment-based emigration. The corresponding population transfer patterns prove more e$cient in invading new territories, eliminating competitors in the process. We suggest that this advantage could have promoted a simple form of coordinated swarming in species featuring a primitive type of cooperation.