Formation of an ant cemetery: swarm intelligence or statistical accident?

Authors:
Marc Martin;Bastien Chopard;Paul Albuquerque
Affiliations:
CUI, University of Geneva, 24, rue du Général-Dufour, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland;CUI, University of Geneva, 24, rue du Général-Dufour, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland;CUI, University of Geneva, 24, rue du Général-Dufour, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
Venue:
Future Generation Computer Systems - Cellular automata CA 2000 and ACRI 2000
Year:
2002

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Abstract

Several species of ants are known to build a cemetery, apparently without any individual planning. We propose a minimal cellular automata like model which accounts for this behavior. The artificial ants of our model require less intelligence than those of the model proposed by Deneubourg in 1991. We show that the observed clustering of corpses can be explained by a statistical effect and we argue that the cemetery formation is not a collective phenomenon since a single ant would also produce it, yet slowly. Our model also accounts for the observed fact that the clustering of corpses takes place around the inhomogeneities of the ants' environment.