caa a22 4500 477091369 CHVBK 20180405111516.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19960301xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF01241782 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF01241782 Effects of social group size on information transfer and task allocation [Elektronische Daten] [Stephen Pacala, Deborah Gordon, H. Godfray] Summary: Social animals exchange information during social interaction. The rate of interaction and, hence, the rate of information exchange, typically changes with density and density may be affected by the size of the social group. We investigate models in which each individual may be engaged in one of several tasks. For example, the different tasks could represent alternative foraging locations exploited by an ant colony. An individual's decision about which task to pursue depends both on environmental stimuli and on interactions among individuals. We examine how group size affects the allocation of individuals among the various tasks. Analysis of the models shows the following. (1) Simple interactions among individuals with limited ability to process information can lead to group behaviour that closely approximates the predictions of evolutionary optimality models, (2) Because per capita rates of social interaction may increase with group size, larger groups may be more efficient than smaller ones at tracking a changing environment, (3) Group behaviour is determined both by each individual's interaction with environmental stimuli and by social exchange of information. To keep these processes in balance across a range of group sizes, organisms are predicted to regulate per capita rates of social interaction and (4) Stochastic models show, at least in some cases, that the results described here occur even in small groups of approximately ten individuals. Chapman & Hall, 1996 information transfer nationallicence social interaction nationallicence group size nationallicence task allocation nationallicence Pacala Stephen Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, 08544, Princeton, NJ, USA aut Gordon Deborah Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, CA, USA aut Godfray H. Department of Biology and NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College at Silwood Park, SL5 7PY, Ascot, Berkshire, UK aut Evolutionary Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 10/2(1996-03-01), 127-165 0269-7653 10:2<127 1996 10 10682 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01241782 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01241782 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Pacala Stephen Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, 08544, Princeton, NJ, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Gordon Deborah Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Godfray H. Department of Biology and NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College at Silwood Park, SL5 7PY, Ascot, Berkshire, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Evolutionary Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 10/2(1996-03-01), 127-165 0269-7653 10:2<127 1996 10 10682 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer