Communication behaviors in Temnothorax ants are resilient because they have evolved as anytime algorithms.
“Tandem runs are a form of recruitment in ants. During a tandem run,
a single leader teaches one follower the route to important resources
such as sources of food or better nest sites. In the present
study, we investigate what tandem leaders and followers do,
in the context of nest emigration, if their partner goes missing.
Our experiments involved removing either leaders or followers
at set points during tandem runs. Former leaders first stand
still and wait for their missing follower but then most often
proceed alone to the new nest site. By contrast, former followers
often first engage in a Brownian search, for almost exactly
the time that their former leader should have waited for
them, and then former followers switch to a superdiffusive search.
In this way, former followers first search their immediate neighbourhood
for their lost leader before becoming ever more wide ranging
so that in the absence of their former leader they can often
find the new nest, re-encounter the old one or meet a new
leader. We also show that followers gain useful information even
from incomplete tandem runs. These observations point to the
important principle that sophisticated communication behaviours may
have evolved as anytime algorithms, i.e. procedures that are
beneficial even if they do not run to completion.” (Franks et al. 2010:1697)
