Extinction and Metastability of Pheromone-Roads in Stochastic Models for Foraging Walks of Ants

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Hauptverfasser: Morimoto, Saori, Katori, Makoto, Nishimori, Hiraku
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Morimoto, Saori
Katori, Makoto
Nishimori, Hiraku
author_facet Morimoto, Saori
Katori, Makoto
Nishimori, Hiraku
contents Macroscopic changes of group behavior of eusocial insects are studied from the viewpoint of non-equilibrium phase transitions. Recent combined study of experiments and mathematical modeling by the group led by the third author suggests that a species of garden ant switches the individual foraging walk from pheromone-mediated to visual-cues-mediated depending on situation. If an initial pheromone-road between the nest and food sources is a detour, ants using visual cues can pioneer shorter paths. These shorter paths are reinforced by pheromone secreted by following ants, and then the detour ceases to exist. Once the old pheromone-road extincts, there will be almost no chance to reconstruct it. Hence the extinction of pheromone-road is expected to be regarded as a phase transition to an absorbing state. We propose a discrete-time model on a square lattice consisting of switching random walks interacting though time-dependent pheromone field. The numerical study shows that the critical phenomena of the present extinction transitions of pheromone-roads do not seem to belong to the directed percolation universality class associated with the usual absorbing-state transition. The new aspects are cased by the coexistence and competition with newly creating pheromone-roads. In a regime in the extinction phase, the annihilating road shows metastability and takes long time-period to be replaced by a new road.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_09475
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Extinction and Metastability of Pheromone-Roads in Stochastic Models for Foraging Walks of Ants
Morimoto, Saori
Katori, Makoto
Nishimori, Hiraku
Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Populations and Evolution
Macroscopic changes of group behavior of eusocial insects are studied from the viewpoint of non-equilibrium phase transitions. Recent combined study of experiments and mathematical modeling by the group led by the third author suggests that a species of garden ant switches the individual foraging walk from pheromone-mediated to visual-cues-mediated depending on situation. If an initial pheromone-road between the nest and food sources is a detour, ants using visual cues can pioneer shorter paths. These shorter paths are reinforced by pheromone secreted by following ants, and then the detour ceases to exist. Once the old pheromone-road extincts, there will be almost no chance to reconstruct it. Hence the extinction of pheromone-road is expected to be regarded as a phase transition to an absorbing state. We propose a discrete-time model on a square lattice consisting of switching random walks interacting though time-dependent pheromone field. The numerical study shows that the critical phenomena of the present extinction transitions of pheromone-roads do not seem to belong to the directed percolation universality class associated with the usual absorbing-state transition. The new aspects are cased by the coexistence and competition with newly creating pheromone-roads. In a regime in the extinction phase, the annihilating road shows metastability and takes long time-period to be replaced by a new road.
title Extinction and Metastability of Pheromone-Roads in Stochastic Models for Foraging Walks of Ants
topic Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.09475