Effects of environmental stochasticity on the foraging dynamics of ant colonies driven by physical interactions

Abstract

Collective foraging is critical for the ecological and evolutionary success of social insect colonies. To evaluate the impact of environmental stochasticity on the collective foraging dynamics of social ants, this paper develops a collective foraging model based on stochastic differential equations, in which communication among workers mainly relies on physical interactions. By analyzing the stochastic dynamics of the constructed model, we obtain relaxation conditions for the existence of an ergodic stationary distribution. Theoretical results suggest that environmental stochasticity leads to a decrease in the effective recruitment rate and average foraging period of foragers, ultimately negatively affecting the average recruit recruitment ability of single returning forager.