Summary: Stochastic simulation of ants that forage by expectation
C. Anderson, P. G. Blackwell & C. Cannings
School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.
e­mail: stp95ca@sheffield.ac.uk
Internet: http://www.shef.ac.uk/¸ms/staff/blackwell/
Abstract
Stochastic simulation has been used to create an
artificial colony of ants in order to study ant for­
aging strategies and the links between individual
activity and the colony's self­organised behaviour.
The ants, which forage by expectation, use a de­
terministic mathematical model developed by Ol­
lason (1980, Theor. Pop. Biol. 18: 44­56; 1987,
Theor. Pop. Biol. 31: 13­32).
Results indicate that ants which have either too
high an expectation of patch quality and reject
good quality patches thus increasing their travel
costs, and those who have too low an expecta­
tion and thus feed at poor quality patches, can be

Source: Anderson, Carl - Synthetic Intelligence, Qbit, LLC, Bethesda, MD

Collections: Environmental Sciences and Ecology; Engineering; Mathematics