Search results for "Ant Colony"
showing 10 items of 62 documents
Nest mounds of red wood ants ( Formicaaquilonia ): hot spots for litter-dwelling earthworms
2017
A previously undocumented association between earthworms and red wood ants (Formicaaquilonia Yarr.) was found during an investigation of the influence of wood ants on the distribution and abundance of soil animals in boreal forest soil. Ant nest mounds and the surrounding soil of the ant territories were sampled. The ant nest mound surface (the uppermost 5-cm layer) harboured a much more abundant earthworm community than the surrounding soil; the biomass of the earthworms was about 7 times higher in the nests than in the soil. Dendrodrilusrubidus dominated the earthworm community in the nests, while in soils Dendrobaenaoctaedra was more abundant. Favorable temperature, moisture and pH (Ca c…
Productivity increases with variation in aggression among group members in Temnothorax ants
2011
Social insect societies are characterized not only by a reproductive division of labor between the queen and workers but also by a specialization of workers on different tasks. However, how this variation in behavior or morphology among workers influences colony fitness is largely unknown. We investigated in the ant Temnothorax longispinosus whether aggressive and exploratory behavior and/or variation among nest mates in these behavioral traits are associated with an important fitness measure, that is, per worker offspring production. In addition, we studied how body size and variation in size among workers affect this colony fitness correlate. First, we found strong differences in worker b…
The cavity-nest ant Temnothorax crassispinus prefers larger nests
2014
Colonies of the ant Temnothorax crassispinus inhabit mostly cavities in wood and hollow acorns. Typically in the field, nest sites that can be used by the ant are a limited resource. In a field experiment, it was investigated whether the ants prefer a specific size of nest, when different ones are available. In July 2011, a total of 160 artificial nests were placed in a beech-pine forest. Four artificial nests (pieces of wood with volume cavities, ca 415, 605, 730, and 980 mm3, respectively) were located on each square meter of the experimental plot. One year later, shortly before the emergence of new sexuals, the nests were collected. In July 2012, colonies inhabited more frequently bigger…
Collective defence portfolios of ant hosts shift with social parasite pressure
2014
Host defences become increasingly costly as parasites breach successive lines of defence. Because selection favours hosts that successfully resist parasitism at the lowest possible cost, escalating coevolutionary arms races are likely to drive host defence portfolios towards ever more expensive strategies. We investigated the interplay between host defence portfolios and social parasite pressure by comparing 17 populations of two Temnothorax ant species. When successful, collective aggression not only prevents parasitation but also spares host colonies the cost of searching for and moving to a new nest site. However, once parasites breach the host's nest defence, host colonies should resor…
Distributed learning automata-based scheme for classification using novel pursuit scheme
2020
Learning Automata (LA) is a popular decision making mechanism to “determine the optimal action out of a set of allowable actions” (Agache and Oommen, IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern-Part B Cybern 2002(6): 738–749, 2002). The distinguishing characteristic of automata-based learning is that the search for the optimising parameter vector is conducted in the space of probability distributions defined over the parameter space, rather than in the parameter space itself (Thathachar and Sastry, IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern-Part B Cybern 32(6): 711–722, 2002). Recently, Goodwin and Yazidi pioneered the use of Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) for solving classification problems (Goodwin and Yazidi 2016). In th…
Interspecific attraction between ground-nesting songbirds and ants: the role of nest-site selection
2021
Abstract Background Interspecific interactions within ecological networks can influence animal fitness and behaviour, including nest-site selection of birds and ants. Previous studies revealed that nesting birds and ants may benefit from cohabitation, with interspecific attraction through their nest-site choice, but mutual interactions have not yet been tested. We explored a previously undescribed ecological link between ground-nesting birds and ants raising their own broods (larvae and pupae) within the birds’ nests in a temperate primeval forest of lowland Europe. We tested whether the occurrence of ant broods within bird nests resulted from a mutual or one-sided interspecific attraction …
Integrated Production and Predictive Maintenance Planning based on Prognostic Information
2019
International audience; This paper address the problem of scheduling production and maintenance operation in predictive maintenance context. It proposes a contribution in the decision making phase of the prognostic and health management framework. Theprognostics and decision processes are merged and an ant colony optimization approach for finding the sequence of decisions that optimizes the benefits of a production system is developed. A case study on a single machine composed of several components where machine can have several usage profiles. The results show thatour approach surpasses classical condition based maintenance policy.
On the Use of Prognostics and Health Management to Jointly Schedule Production and Maintenance on a Single Multi-purpose Machine
2020
This paper address the problem of using prognostic information in the decision-making process of a single multi-purpose machine. The prognostics and health management method is compared to condition-based maintenance combined with a genetic algorithm to determine the joint schedule of maintenance and production. The paper presents a methodology to select the adequate strategy while considering several factors that influence the functioning of the machine. The results show that operational and conditions variability influence the choice of the suitable methods. In the presented case, we show configurations where prognostic information is useless or useful.
A New Meta-Heuristic Multi-Objective Approach For Optimal Dispatch of Dispersed and Renewable Generating Units in Power Distribution Systems
2011
The application of stochastic methods in engineering research and optimization has been increasing over the past few decades. Ant Colony Optimization, in particular, has been attracting growing attention as a promising approach both in discrete and continuous domains. The present work proposes a multi-objective Ant Colony Optimization for continuous domains showing good convergence properties and uniform coverage of the non-dominated front. These properties have been proved both with mathematical test functions and with a complex real world problem. Besides the second part of the chapter presents the application of the new algorithm to the problem of optimal dispatch of dispersed power gene…
Lévy Flights for Ant Colony Optimization in Continuous Domains
2009
In this paper, the authors propose the use of the Levy probability distribution as leading mechanism for solutions differentiation in an efficient and bio-inspired optimization algorithm, ant colony optimization in continuous domains, ACOR. In the classical ACOR, new solutions are constructed starting from one solution, selected from an archive, where Gaussian distribution is used for parameter diversification. In the proposed approach, the Levy probability distributions are properly introduced in the solution construction step, in order to couple the ACOR algorithm with the exploration properties of the Levy distribution.