A locally-blazed ant trail achieves efficient collective navigation despite limited information
- Department of Physics of complex systems, Israel
- Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
- Institut de Recherche en Informatique Fondamentale, CNRS and University Paris Diderot, France
- Institut de Recherche en Informatique Fondamentale, INRIA and University Paris Diderot, France
Abstract
Any organism faces sensory and cognitive limitations which may result in maladaptive decisions. Such limitations are prominent in the context of groups where the relevant information at the individual level may not coincide with collective requirements. Here, we study the navigational decisions exhibited by Paratrechina longicornis ants as they cooperatively transport a large food item. These decisions hinge on the perception of individuals which often fails to supply the group with reliable directional information. We find that, to achieve efficient navigation despite partial and even misleading information, these ants employ a locally-blazed trail. This trail significantly deviates from the classical notion of an ant trail: First, instead of systematically marking the full path, ants mark short segments originating at the load. Second, the carrying team constantly loses the guiding trail. We experimentally and theoretically show that the locally-blazed trail optimally and robustly exploits useful knowledge while avoiding the pitfalls of misleading information.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
European Research Council (DBA-648032)
- Amos Korman
- Ofer Feinerman
Israel Science Foundation (833/15)
- Ofer Feinerman
Narodowe Centrum Nauki (2015/17/B/ST6/01897)
- Adrian Kosowski
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Russ Fernald, Stanford University, United States
Version history
- Received: July 30, 2016
- Accepted: November 3, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: November 5, 2016 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: December 7, 2016 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2016, Fonio et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A locally-blazed ant trail achieves efficient collective navigation despite limited information
eLife 5:e20185.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.20185
Further reading
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Background:
Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Most cases of preterm birth occur spontaneously and result from preterm labor with intact (spontaneous preterm labor [sPTL]) or ruptured (preterm prelabor rupture of membranes [PPROM]) membranes. The prediction of spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) remains underpowered due to its syndromic nature and the dearth of independent analyses of the vaginal host immune response. Thus, we conducted the largest longitudinal investigation targeting vaginal immune mediators, referred to herein as the immunoproteome, in a population at high risk for sPTB.
Methods:
Vaginal swabs were collected across gestation from pregnant women who ultimately underwent term birth, sPTL, or PPROM. Cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, and antimicrobial peptides in the samples were quantified via specific and sensitive immunoassays. Predictive models were constructed from immune mediator concentrations.
Results:
Throughout uncomplicated gestation, the vaginal immunoproteome harbors a cytokine network with a homeostatic profile. Yet, the vaginal immunoproteome is skewed toward a pro-inflammatory state in pregnant women who ultimately experience sPTL and PPROM. Such an inflammatory profile includes increased monocyte chemoattractants, cytokines indicative of macrophage and T-cell activation, and reduced antimicrobial proteins/peptides. The vaginal immunoproteome has improved predictive value over maternal characteristics alone for identifying women at risk for early (<34 weeks) sPTB.
Conclusions:
The vaginal immunoproteome undergoes homeostatic changes throughout gestation and deviations from this shift are associated with sPTB. Furthermore, the vaginal immunoproteome can be leveraged as a potential biomarker for early sPTB, a subset of sPTB associated with extremely adverse neonatal outcomes.
Funding:
This research was conducted by the Perinatology Research Branch, Division of Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Division of Intramural Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (NICHD/NIH/DHHS) under contract HHSN275201300006C. ALT, KRT, and NGL were supported by the Wayne State University Perinatal Initiative in Maternal, Perinatal and Child Health.
