Title

Reproductive Division of Labor in a Colony of Artificial Ants

Publication Date

7-1-2019

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Abstract

We simulate an ant colony in which an ant’s genetics can determine behavioral, morphological and physiological differences between workers and queens. We show that depending on the benefits conferred to workers and queens different reproductive division of labor strategies evolve. In particular, we observe both generalist colonies and colonies with specialized worker and queen castes. Generalist colonies were subject to selection for optimal response thresholds. Colonies with castes evolved a discrete queen caste and either a discrete or continuous worker caste. As a secondary experiment we expose our evolved colonies to a changing environment to test their ability to adapt cooperative foraging strategies and we find all reproductive division of labor strategies were effective at cooperative foraging.

Publication Title

Artificial Life Conference Proceedings

Volume

31

First Page

308

Last Page

315

DOI

10.1162/isal_a_00180

Publisher Policy

open acces

Open Access Status

OA Journal

Link to Full Text

Find in your library

Share

COinS