Just how ants create the highly efficient network of trails around their nests has never been fully understood. Now researchers think they've cracked it
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The Secret of Ant Transportation Networks - Technology Review - 2 views
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They say the structure of ant trails can be entirely explained if the ants's response to a pheromone droplet concentration is linear. "One ant will turn to the left in proportion to the difference between the pheromone it has on its left side and the pheromone on its right," say Perna and co. They also point out that this is exactly what Weber's law predicts.
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Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1201.5827 :Individual Rules For Trail Pattern Formation In Argentine Ants (Linepithema Humile)
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from the abstract: "Using a novel imaging and analysis technique on experimental data we estimated pheromone concentrations at all spatial positions in the experimental arena and at different times. Then we derived the response function of individual ants to pheromone concentrations by looking at correlations between concentrations and changes in speed or direction of the ants." [...] "agent based simulations based on the Weber's Law response function determined experimentally produced results compatible with those reported in the literature and reproduced the formation of trails."
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Nice article!
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