Self-organized traffic via priority rules in leaf-cutting ants

Ants, termites and humans often form well-organized and highly efficient trails between different locations. Yet the microscopic traffic rules responsible for this organization and efficiency are not fully understood. In previous experimental studies with leaf-cutting ants (Atta colombica), a set of local priority rules were isolated and it was proposed that these rules govern the temporal and spatial organization of the traffic on the trails. Here we introduce a model based on these priority rules to investigate whether they are sufficient to produce traffic similar to that observed in the experiments on both a narrow and a wider trail. We establish that the model is able to reproduce key characteristics of the traffic on the trails. In particular, we show that the proposed priority rules induce de-synchronization into clusters of inbound and outbound ants on a narrow trail, and that priority-type dependent segregated traffic emerges on a wider trail. Due to the generic nature of the proposed priority rules we speculate that they may be used to model traffic organization in a variety of other ant species.蚂蚁、白蚁与人类往往能够在不同点位之间构建出组织有序且高效顺畅的通行路径。然而，支撑这类组织模式与通行效率的微观交通调控规则，目前尚未得到完全阐释。过往针对哥伦比亚切叶蚁（Atta colombica）开展的实验研究中，研究者已分离出一系列局部优先通行规则，并提出这些规则主导了蚁道上交通流的时空组织格局。本研究基于上述优先通行规则构建了仿真模型，旨在探究这些规则是否足以复现窄径与宽径两种场景下实验中观测到的交通流特征。研究证实，该模型能够复现蚁道交通流的核心特征。具体而言，我们发现所提出的优先通行规则可使窄径上的归巢与觅食蚁群形成去同步化的集群分布；而在宽径场景下，则会出现基于优先规则类型的分流交通模式。鉴于上述优先通行规则具有普适性，我们推测其可用于建模多种其他蚂蚁物种的交通组织行为。