Individual optimality does not guarantee community optimality: why don't honeybees analyze dances?

Tereshko V.н.
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We developed a model of honeybee colony foraging based on reaction – diffusion equations. Employed bees transmit information about their food sources using dance, and job seekers in the hive can choose any dance they like and thus join the exploitation of the corresponding source. We consider two strategies of dance selection: a targeted one, when bees analyze information on the dance floor and choose the most energetic and longest dance corresponding to the most profitable source, and a simple random choice of the first dance they encounter. Modelling showed that the greatest profit (food influx into the hive) is provided by the random choice of dance, as paradoxical as it may seem at first glance. Optimization of profit by each agent for itself (targeted choice of dances) is rather a disadvantage for the colony, and “non-optimality” in dance choice can be the result of useful evolutionary adaptation.

Keywords: honeybee colony, foraging, optimality
Citation in English: Tereshko V.н. Individual optimality does not guarantee community optimality: why don't honeybees analyze dances? // Computer Research and Modeling, 2025, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 261-275
Citation in English: Tereshko V.н. Individual optimality does not guarantee community optimality: why don't honeybees analyze dances? // Computer Research and Modeling, 2025, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 261-275
DOI: 10.20537/2076-7633-2025-17-2-261-275
URL: http://crm-en.ics.org.ru/journal/article/3598/
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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