A trophallaxis inspired model for distributed transport between randomly interacting agents

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytical and simulation-based model of trophallaxis-inspired food transfer among randomly interacting agents, providing insights into food distribution efficiency and uniformity within colonies.

Contribution

It presents a simple, analytically tractable model of trophallactic systems with finite capacity, advancing understanding of collective food dissemination in social insect colonies.

Findings

Calculated global food intake rate analytically and via simulations

Analyzed how uniformly food is distributed within the colony

Serves as a foundation for modeling more complex trophallactic behaviors

Abstract

A trophallaxis inspired model for distributed transport between randomly interacting agents Trophallaxis, the regurgitation and mouth to mouth transfer of liquid food between members of eusocial insect societies, is an important process that allows the fast and efficient dissemination of food in the colony. Trophallactic systems are typically treated as a network of agent interactions. This approach, though valuable, does not easily lend itself to analytic predictions. In this work we consider a simple trophallactic system of randomly interacting agents with finite carrying capacity, and calculate analytically and via a series of simulations the global food intake rate for the whole colony as well as observables describing how uniformly the food is distributed within the nest. Our work serves as a stepping stone to describing the collective properties of more complex trophallactic systems, such as those including division of labor between foragers and workers.