Title
Reproductive Division of Labor in a Colony of Artificial Ants
Publication Date
2020
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. Copyright © ALIFE 2019.All rights reserved.
Publication Title
Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Artificial Life: How Can Artificial Life Help Solve Societal Challenges, ALIFE 2019
First Page
308
Last Page
315
Publisher Policy
No SHERPA/RoMEO policy available
Open Access Status
Licensed
Recommended Citation
Bae, P., & Marriott, C. (2020). Reproductive Division of Labor in a Colony of Artificial Ants. Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Artificial Life: How Can Artificial Life Help Solve Societal Challenges, ALIFE 2019, 308–315. Scopus.
