Pheromones swarm

Swarm intelligence is a term that is applied to two rather different techniques — ant colony or pheromone trail optimization and particle swarm optimization. We deal here briefly with the latter. 

The queen is usually reproductively dominant within the colony and uses chemical cues as both primer and releaser pheromones to suppress the production or fecundity of other sexuals, inhibit reproduction by worker castes, modulate reproductive behaviors (e.g., inhibit swarming and orient swarms), attract males, regulate worker tasks and worker ontogeny, and produce host repellents in slave-making species. Considering the importance of queen semiochemicals in social hymenoptera, few queen pheromones have been chemically identified. The queens of most social hymenopteran colonies are attractive to workers, allowing them to be properly tended as well as to facilitate the dissemination of other pheromone cues. However, the retinue pheromone has been chemically identified in very few species. In the 1980s, queen pheromone components were identified in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta [91,92], and in the Pharaoh s ant, Monomoriumpharaonis [93]. 

Ledoux M. N., Winston M. L., Higo H., Keeling C. I., Slessor K. N. and LeConte Y. (2001) Queen and pheromonal factors influencing comb construction by simulated honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) swarms. Insectes Soc. 48, 14—20. 

In the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, a similar phenomenon has been observed, but here it is older insects that lose activity among AL neurons (Ignell et al., 2001). Together with other sensory cues, desert locusts rely on aggregation pheromones to form their infamous swarms. Adult males produce an aggregation... 

Clarke, S. R., Dani, F. R., Jones, G. R., Morgan, E. D., and Turillazzi, S. (1999). Chemical analysis of the swarming trail pheromone of the social wasp Polybia sericea (hymenoptera vespi-dae). J. Insect Physiol. 45, 877-883. 

Schmidt, 1.0. (1998). Mass action in honey bees Alarm, swarming and the role of releaser pheromones. In Pheromone Communication in Social Insects Ants, Wasps, Bees, and Termites (Vander Meer, R.K., Breed, M.D., EspeUe,... 

Butler, C.G., Callow, R.K. and Chapman, J.R. (1964). 9-Hydroxydec-tra j-2-enoic acid, a pheromone stabilizing honey bee swarms. Nature 201,733. 

Butler, C.G. and Simpson, J. (1967). Pheromones of the queen honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) which enable her workers to follow her when swarming. Proc. Ry. Entomol. Soc. London (A) 42,149-154. 

Schmidt, J.O., Slessor, N. and Winston, M. (1993). Roles of Nasanov and queen pheromones in attraction of honeybee swarms. Naturwissenschaften 80, 573-575. 

Lensky, Y. and Slabezki, Y. (1981). The inhibiting effect of the queen bee (Apis mellifera L.) foot-print pheromone on the construction of swarming queen cups. J. Insect Physiol. 27, 313-323. 

C,H,202, Mr 152.19, a pheromone isolated from the feces of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria that influences aggregation (formation of swarms) and is supposed to have other physiological activities. However, in recent studies, the substance could not be detected, at least in S. gregaria, instead a mixture of various phenols and phenylacetonitrile (CgH7NO, Mr 133.15) was reported. For general information on the pheromones of grasshoppers, see Ut . 

However when density increases MANET connectivity also increases, and thus increased RAs laying pheromone down, so that even for highly isolated MANETs, the success rate increases up to almost 100 % of swarm nodes. Thus, almost all the swarm nodes eventually reach safe areas even when only a few nodes know the way to the safe area. 

Minor constit. of royal jelly. A pheromone stabilizing honey-bee swarms. Oil. 

There is controversy about the exact role of the odoriferous compounds collected by the male bees, but it is likely that they are involved in attraction of other euglossine bees or converted into sexual (aggregation) pheromones. It has been suggested that males use the compounds and various aspects of behavior to attract other males. This makes a small swarm of bees, and the females are attracted. This is similar to lek behavior in birds (Harbome, 1982, 1989). 

Recent methods draw on natural mimicry to find best solutions by using swarms of either pseudo-ants or -bees to test a large number of possible alternatives to find the ones that work well. Ant colony methods are useful in other fields such as delivery route optimization (the traveling salesman problem), but in essence the natural systems are individually trying many options in parallel and reporting back to the other members of the colony about the success or otherwise of their attempts. In the natural world, this is encoded by a pheromone trail and in the computational world it is the upweighting of selection parameters [62,63]. 

Swarm intelligence [1] is a term describing the collective behavior that emerges from a group of social insects. An example is how ants find the shortest path between the nest and a food source by coimnunicating via pheromone, a chemical substance that attracts other ants. Figure 2 illustrates how the shortest path is found. 

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