Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
she encounters fewer than 20, she will stop foraging for pollen. h e
other individual has a threshold of 22 cells. h e pollen forager unloads
her pollen and then makes another trip. By unloading her pollen, she
changes the pollen-stores stimulus from 22 empty cells to 21, which now
is below the pollen-foraging response threshold of the other individual.
h us by responding to the stimulus—the number of empty cells—the
forager decreases the stimulus by depositing pollen and af ects the prob-
ability that other individuals will engage in that task. Alhough this is an
oversimplii ed example, it demonstrates the fundamental basis of self-
organized division of labor in the nest.
2.2 h
e Logic of Division of Labor
h e organizational structure of a colony of honey bees is a consequence
of a logic that emerges from the behavior of individual bees responding
to the stimuli in their environment. h e environment of each individ-
ual is both instantaneously and experientially unique. h e logic of indi-
vidual behavior is the stimulus-response relationship of an individual
with its environment. h e logic of a colony is the collection of the
stimulus-response relationships of all individuals, the ways in which
stimulus information is sampled and shared. We can explore this logic
with network models that capture many of the features of real colony
behavior.
Models are representations of objects or concepts. h ey can be
scaled-down representations of the real world, like a model of an auto-
mobile or airplane, or a map as a model of a physical location. In science,
models are most ot en used to make predictions about some relatively
complex system in order to test hypotheses about the model's compo-
nents, make predictions, or be able to control the parts of the system. In
our world today, climate warming is a major issue, and many models
have been constructed to better understand the important variables,
predict the climatic course of the future, and make recommendations
for future courses of action. In agriculture, models are made to esti-
mate the growth of populations of pest insects on crops in order to
predict the best time to treat with insecticides and avoid economic
