Collective Behaviour

Anchor 1

Collective decision-making is key to social insect societies? Deciding where to forage, where and what to build, and how to defend their nest all require coordination and collective behaviour.

In the ACElab we work on various aspects of collective decision making:

Cooperative transport - how ants carry loads too large for an individual to lift
Decentralised decision-making - how colonies decide which resource to focus on, or path to take
Abandonment - how colonies decide if a location or food source is too dangerous and should be abandoned

Please forgive the lack of insight and text on this page - one fine day I will add links, add further insightful text, and generally run a reasonable website.

Pheromone deposition in L. niger - a measure of perceived value

Cooperative transport in ants! Possibly the coolest cooperative behaviour ever?

Collective decision-making: also a cool collective behaviour (but not quite as cool as coop trans)