Robustness of Collective Scenting in the Presence of Physical Obstacles

• DOI: 10.1101/2021.03.23.436715
• Publication Date: 2021-03-25T00:45:16Z
• Authors: Dieu My T. Nguyen; Golnar Gharooni Fard; Michael Iuzzolino; Orit Peleg
• Keywords: Swarming (honey bee); Robustness

Abstract Honey bees ( Apis mellifera L.) aggregate around the queen by collectively organizing a communication network to propagate volatile pheromone signals. Our previous study shows that individual “scent” emit pheromones and fan their wings direct signal flow, creating an efficient search aggregation process. In this work, we introduce environmental stressors in form of physical obstacles partially block signals prevent wide open path queen. We employ machine learning methods extract data from experimental recordings, show presence obstacle blocks most queen, need more time but can still effectively collective scenting strategy overcome Further, increase complexity environment presenting with maze navigate The require exploration populated network. Overall, given only local communication, solve swarming process complex unstructured obstacles.