Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
We assumed that a group of nonsocial but tolerant insects lived to-
gether in a nest. h is is very likely because there are many nonsocial,
nesting insects that lay eggs in batches, or in close proximity, within a
common nest. h e adult of spring that emerge in the nest begin their
lives together at the same location. A directed-graph network of a group
of protosocial insects such as these might look like Figure 2.3. h e dots
are called elements and may represent individual insects. Elements can
be nodes for information l ow. h e arrows are informational channels.
h e information begins at the node at the tail of the arrow and ends at
the head of the arrow at another node. In the simplest network, the ar-
rows transmit information about whether the originating element is “on”
or “of .” h is can be expressed in Boolean logic as 0 or 1. In our protoso-
cial insect case, this could be an individual performing or not perform-
ing a given behavior. For instance, an individual foraging for pollen
would be a 1, while another individual not foraging for pollen would
be 0, although she could be a 1 for some other task, such as foraging
Figure 2.3. Network graph in which there are i ve nodes, each connected to all
other nodes and to itself. Information travels from one node to the next through
the directed arrow in the direction of the arrowhead. In this case, K = N = 5.
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