Piross, Imre Sandor, Lecheval, Valentin Jacques Dominique orcid.org/0000-0001-6041-2718, Powell, Scott et al. (2 more authors) (Accepted: 2025) Strong and weak environmental perturbations cause contrasting restructure of ant transportation networks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. ISSN 1471-2954 (In Press)
Abstract
Dynamic transportation networks are embedded in all levels of biological organisation. Ever-growing anthropogenic disturbances and an increasingly variable climate highlight the importance of understanding how these networks restructure under environmental perturbations. Polydomous wood ants provide a convenient model system to study the resilience of self-organising multi-source multi-sink transportation networks. We used ten years of longitudinal empirical data on both unperturbed and experimentally manipulated colony networks to develop and validate a comprehensive dynamic simulation model to study network restructuring after resource removal. We performed simulation experiments to study the effects of excluding food sources with varying importance, either temporarily or permanently, imitating pulse and press perturbations of the networks. We found that removing heavily used resources, corresponding to a strong targeted perturbation, persistently decreased network efficiency, unlike random or weak perturbations. We also found that strong perturbations had excessively adverse effects on robustness and function, reducing the networks’ ability to withstand potential future perturbations. When transportation networks develop around the efficient use of a few key resources, they may unable to quickly recover from the loss of these through self-organised restructuring. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the interaction of perturbation strength and network structure in studying transportation network dynamics.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University’s Research Publications and Open Access policy. |
Keywords: | networks,foraging,social insects,dynamic networks,resilience,ants,social organisation,spatial networks |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION n/a |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2025 13:30 |
Last Modified: | 28 Feb 2025 13:50 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.2342 |
Status: | In Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2024.2342 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:222991 |
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Filename: Ant_networks_MS_4_for_Elva.pdf
Description: AAM_PirossEtAl2025
Licence: CC-BY 2.5
