Chapter 7: Structures
Picture by Charles Badland/Walter Tschinkel
In this chapter we look at a number of spatial structures which can arise through local interactions between animals and their environment. Pillars and chambers in the nest of social insect colonies; rail, road and supply networks in humans and the pheromone trail systems of ants are all constructed in this way. Often the complexity of these patterns give an impression of centralised design or planning. However, positive feedback operating in space can produce a rich variety of patterns without central organisation.
Key ideas covered in this chapter: Symetrical structures; ant nests; Termite nests; Turing mechanisms; ant corpse clustering; pillars and chambers; ant tunnel networks; ant foraging networks; planar network theory; Gastner & Newmans model
Links
Guy Theraulaz's homepage
Mark Newman's homepage
Micheal Gastner's homepage
Dirk Helbing's homepage
References
Camazine, S., Deneubourg, J. L., Franks, N. R., Sneyd, J., Theraulaz, G. & Bonabeau, E. 2001. Self-organization in biological systems. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University PressGastner, M. T. & Newman, M. E. J. 2006. The spatial structure of networks. European Physical Journal B, 49, 247-252.
Theraulaz, G., Bonabeau, E., Nicolis, S. C., Sole, R. V., Fourcassie, V., Blanco, S., Fournier, R., Joly, J. L., Fernandez, P., Grimal, A., Dalle, P. & Deneubourg, J. L. 2002. Spatial patterns in ant colonies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99, 9645-9649.
Theraulaz, G., Gautrais, J., Camazine, S. & Deneubourg, J. L. 2003. The formation of spatial patterns in social insects: from simple behaviours to complex structures. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series a-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 361, 1263-1282.
Picture by Jerome Buhl
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