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Summary: vol. 154, no. 5 the american naturalist november 1999
Task Partitioning in Insect Societies. II. Use of Queueing Delay
Information in Recruitment
Francis L. W. Ratnieks1
and Carl Anderson2,*
1. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom;
2. Probability and Statistics Section, School of Mathematics and
Statistics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, United Kingdom
Submitted December 1, 1997; Accepted June 17, 1999
abstract: The collection and handling of colony resources such as
food, water, and nest-construction material is often divided into
subtasks in which the material is passed from one worker to another.
This is known as task partitioning. If tasks are partitioned with direct
transfer of material between foragers and receivers, queueing delays
can occur as individuals search or wait for a transfer partner. Changes
in environmental conditions and relative number of foragers and
receivers affect these delays as well as colony ergonomic efficiency.
These delays are used in recruitment in both honeybees and Polybia
wasps. This study investigates the distribution of queueing delays
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