Social insects provide us with a powerful metaphor to create decentralized systems of simple interacting, and often mobile, agents. The emergent collective intelligence of social insects---swarm intelligence---resides not in complex individual abilities but rather in networks of interactions...

A model of division of labour in insect societies based on variable response thresholds is introduced. Response thresholds refer to likelihood of reacting to task-associated stimuli. Low threshold individuals perform tasks at a lower level of stimulus than high threshold individuals. Within...

A simple model of recruitment-based foraging in ants illustrates the idea that synchronized patterns of activity can endow a colony with the ability to forage more efficiently when a minimal number of active individuals is required to establish and maintain food source exploitation. This model,...

We introduce a simple mathematical model of regulation of division of labour in insect societies based on the notion of fixed response thresholds. Individuals with different thresholds respond differently to task-associated stimuli. Low-threshold individuals become involved at a lower level of...