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Complex adaptive systems are of vital
importance to human society. Humans themselves are complex adaptive
systems, as are the cells from which they are made, but humans also use complex
adaptive systems as tools with which society is managed, such as governing
bodies and road networks. The organisation of the multitude of systems on
which our society relies is an ever increasing problem. Ants continually
face dynamic organisational problems and have been evolving to manage these
problems for 80 million years. One type of organisation frequently used by
ants is self-organisation. Here organisation emerges from local
interactions of individual components which occur without reference to the
global pattern and without centralised control.
Ant societies may comprise up to 22
million individuals. The problems posed by the organisation of such large
societies are many, and are dealt with in human societies only by detailed
and extensive communication and monitoring to orchestrate the necessary
co-operation. Ants, as eusocial insects, have co-operative brood care, and
may also co-operate in many other processes such as colony waste disposal,
nest building, collective defence and foraging. All these processes must be
carried out effectively and efficiently if ants are to survive in the
competitive environment of nature. This requires the societies to be
well-organised, and the high level of organisation produced means that they
are not only able to cope with the huge number of individuals, but reap
cooperative benefits from their large colony size.
I am studying Pharaoh's ant foraging
behaviour at both the individual and colony levels. I am also using a
bottom-up modelling approach to deepen our understanding of how the colony
level systems emerge from individual level behaviour. We could benefit from
the study of the highly evolved organisation of ants by applying what we
learn to the dynamic problems in our modern society.
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