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Adaptive Behavior
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Dynamic Polyethism and Competition for Tasks in Threshold Reinforcement Models of Social Insects

Daniel Merkle

Parallel Computing and Complex Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Leipzig, merkle{at}informatik.uni-leipzig.de

Martin Middendorf

Parallel Computing and Complex Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Leipzig, middendorf{at}informatik.uni-leipzig.de

In this paper we study the dynamics of task division in threshold reinforcement models of social insect societies. Our work extends other models in order to include several factors that influence the behavior of real insect colonies. Main extensions of our model are variable demands for work, age-dependent thresholds and finite life span of the individuals. It is shown how these factors influence the degree of task specialization of the individuals in a colony. Moreover, we show that the introduction of a threshold-dependent competition process between the individuals during task selection leads to the occurrence of specialists and differentiation between individuals as an emergent phenomenon that depends on the colony size. This result can help to explain the proximate mechanisms that lead to specialization in large insect colonies. Our results have implications for the fields of multi-agent systems, robotics, and nature inspired scheduling where threshold response models are used for control and regulation tasks.

Key Words: task division • threshold models • polyethism • simulation

Adaptive Behavior, Vol. 12, No. 3-4, 251-262 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/105971230401200310
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