A trophallaxis inspired model for distributed transport between randomly interacting agents
Abstract
A trophallaxis inspired model for distributed transport between randomly interacting agents Trophallaxis, the regurgitation and mouth to mouth transfer of liquid food between members of eusocial insect societies, is an important process that allows the fast and efficient dissemination of food in the colony. Trophallactic systems are typically treated as a network of agent interactions. This approach, though valuable, does not easily lend itself to analytic predictions. In this work we consider a simple trophallactic system of randomly interacting agents with finite carrying capacity, and calculate analytically and via a series of simulations the global food intake rate for the whole colony as well as observables describing how uniformly the food is distributed within the nest. Our work serves as a stepping stone to describing the collective properties of more complex trophallactic systems, such as those including division of labor between foragers and workers.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1607.06055,
title = {A trophallaxis inspired model for distributed transport between randomly interacting agents},
author = {Johannes Gräwer and Henrik Ronellenfitsch and Marco G. Mazza and Eleni Katifori},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.06055},
year = {2017}
}