Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior [NOOK Book]

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Overview

How do ant colonies get anything done, when no one is in charge? An ant colony operates without a central control or hierarchy, and no ant directs another. Instead, ants decide what to do based on the rate, rhythm, and pattern of individual encounters and interactions--resulting in a dynamic network that coordinates the functions of the colony. Ant Encounters provides a revealing and accessible look into ant behavior from this complex systems perspective.

Focusing on the ...

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Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior

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Overview

How do ant colonies get anything done, when no one is in charge? An ant colony operates without a central control or hierarchy, and no ant directs another. Instead, ants decide what to do based on the rate, rhythm, and pattern of individual encounters and interactions--resulting in a dynamic network that coordinates the functions of the colony. Ant Encounters provides a revealing and accessible look into ant behavior from this complex systems perspective.

Focusing on the moment-to-moment behavior of ant colonies, Deborah Gordon investigates the role of interaction networks in regulating colony behavior and relations among ant colonies. She shows how ant behavior within and between colonies arises from local interactions of individuals, and how interaction networks develop as a colony grows older and larger. The more rapidly ants react to their encounters, the more sensitively the entire colony responds to changing conditions. Gordon explores whether such reactive networks help a colony to survive and reproduce, how natural selection shapes colony networks, and how these structures compare to other analogous complex systems.

Ant Encounters sheds light on the organizational behavior, ecology, and evolution of these diverse and ubiquitous social insects.

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Editorial Reviews

Times Higher Education

In her new book, written in a lively style and accessible to a general audience, Gordon describes the sophisticated experiments that led her to intriguing insights about how an ant colony can solve vital problems, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks or defending a territory from rivals.
Choice
This volume provides a well-focused review of how complex biological systems develop and function, with applications well beyond understanding ant colonies. It may compel behavioral and community ecologists, as well as other non-biologists, to consider new perspectives in understanding interacting systems.
Trends in Ecology & Evolution
This concise, well-written book will be of interest to biologists and complexity scientists, but is written to also be accessible to non-scientists. . . . Ant Encounters is an enjoyable read, full of neat experiments and lively anecdotes illustrating the scientific points.
— Elva J. H. Washington
Trends in Ecology and Evolution

This concise, well-written book will be of interest to biologists and complexity scientists, but is written to also be accessible to non-scientists. . . . Ant Encounters is an enjoyable read, full of neat experiments and lively anecdotes illustrating the scientific points.
— Elva J. H. Washington
Basic and Applied Ecology
[T]he good and easy to understand introduction to the role of interaction networks in colony behavior—or ants as a natural complex system based on interactions networks—as well as the style of writing makes the book an entertaining read.
— Heike Feldhaar
Trends in Ecology and Evolution - Elva J.H. Washington
This concise, well-written book will be of interest to biologists and complexity scientists, but is written to also be accessible to non-scientists. . . . Ant Encounters is an enjoyable read, full of neat experiments and lively anecdotes illustrating the scientific points.
Basic and Applied Ecology - Heike Feldhaar
[T]he good and easy to understand introduction to the role of interaction networks in colony behavior—or ants as a natural complex system based on interactions networks—as well as the style of writing makes the book an entertaining read.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution - Elva J. H. Washington

This concise, well-written book will be of interest to biologists and complexity scientists, but is written to also be accessible to non-scientists. . . . Ant Encounters is an enjoyable read, full of neat experiments and lively anecdotes illustrating the scientific points.
Time Magazines Higher Education
In her new book, written in a lively style and accessible to a general audience, Gordon describes the sophisticated experiments that led her to intriguing insights about how an ant colony can solve vital problems, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, allocating workers to different tasks or defending a territory from rivals.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781400835447
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • Publication date: 3/22/2010
  • Series: Primers in Complex Systems
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 184
  • Sales rank: 555,958
  • File size: 2 MB

Meet the Author

Deborah M. Gordon is professor of biology at Stanford University. She is the author of" Ants at Work" (Norton).
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi

Chapter 1: The Ant Colony as a Complex System 1
Chapter 2: Colony Organization 14
The Diversity of Ant Behavior 14
From Individual to Collective Behavior 19
Division of Labor 25
Ants Switch Tasks 30
Age Polyethism 33
What Ants Respond To 37
Task Allocation 41

Chapter 3: Interaction Networks 45
What Happens at Network Nodes 47
The Pattern of Interaction Is the Message 49
Rate and Memory 57
Individual Variation 83
Species Differences 67

Chapter 4: Colony Size 75
Colony Growth 75
Task Allocation and Colony Size 83
Ecology, Behavior, and Mature Colony Size 90

Chapter 5: Relations with Neighbors 96
Relations with Neighbors of the Same Species 97
Interactions between Species 107
Invasive Species 112
From Ecology to Behavior 117

Chapter 6: Ant Evolution 121
Coevolution of Ants and Plants 121
Evolution of Colony Organization 125
Natural Selection in Action 131

Chapter 7: Modeling Ant Behavior 141
Notes 147
Index 165

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