2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Ecological factors regulating the expression of self-organization in social insects

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23870003
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Ecology/Environment
Research Institution	Chiba University
Principal Investigator	KIKUCHI Tomonori 千葉大学, 海洋バイオシステム研究センター, 准教授 (80608547)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2012
Keywords	自己組織化 / 社会性昆虫
Research Abstract	In social insects such as ants and bees, various collective behaviors are emerged through self-organization based on local interaction among colony members. To estimate how ecological factors influence the expression of self-organization in ant's colony, we investigated the mechanism of information transmission that is done by direct physical contacts among colony members. As a results, patrol behavior by queens which is one of the primary way in information transmission was accompanied with some ecological cost and the more time budget of patrol behavior is increased, the less the number of egg is laid by queens. In addition, the activity in the individuals level has clear rhythmic pattern and the pattern was changed by physical interaction among individuals. Thus, my data showed that expression pattern of self-organization in organisms was largely influenced by ecological factors that are related with local interaction among individuals.

(4 results)