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Proc Biol Sci

Title:		Composite collective decision-making
Author(s):		Czaczkes TJ; Czaczkes B; Iglhaut C; Heinze J;
Address:		"Biologie I, Universitat Regensburg, Universitatsstrasse 31, Regensburg 93053, Germany tomer.czaczkes@universitaet-regensburg.de. Programming Instruction Unit, Faculty of Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel. Biologie I, Universitat Regensburg, Universitatsstrasse 31, Regensburg 93053, Germany"
Journal Title:		Proc Biol Sci
Year:		2015
Volume:		282
Issue:		1809
Page Number:		20142723 -
DOI:		10.1098/rspb.2014.2723
ISSN/ISBN:		1471-2954 (Electronic) 0962-8452 (Print) 0962-8452 (Linking)
Abstract:		"Individual animals are adept at making decisions and have cognitive abilities, such as memory, which allow them to hone their decisions. Social animals can also share information. This allows social animals to make adaptive group-level decisions. Both individual and collective decision-making systems also have drawbacks and limitations, and while both are well studied, the interaction between them is still poorly understood. Here, we study how individual and collective decision-making interact during ant foraging. We first gathered empirical data on memory-based foraging persistence in the ant Lasius niger. We used these data to create an agent-based model where ants may use social information (trail pheromones), private information (memories) or both to make foraging decisions. The combined use of social and private information by individuals results in greater efficiency at the group level than when either information source was used alone. The modelled ants couple consensus decision-making, allowing them to quickly exploit high-quality food sources, and combined decision-making, allowing different individuals to specialize in exploiting different resource patches. Such a composite collective decision-making system reaps the benefits of both its constituent parts. Exploiting such insights into composite collective decision-making may lead to improved decision-making algorithms"
Keywords:		"*Animal Communication Animals Ants/*physiology Decision Making Feeding Behavior *Memory Models, Theoretical Pheromones/*metabolism agent-based modelling communication decision-making foraging memory recruitment;"
Notes:		"MedlineCzaczkes, Tomer J Czaczkes, Benjamin Iglhaut, Carolin Heinze, Jurgen eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2015/05/29 Proc Biol Sci. 2015 Jun 22; 282(1809):20142723. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.2723"