Exploiting Artificial Polyethism


Many types of insect form colonies in which each individual is a mere unit of the body politic, the latter being the important entity. Honey bees, ant and termites are good examples. A question that most of us worry about, at least for some of the time, is how do they get and stay organized, and what’s more, work hard without managers around every corner supervising who is doing what, when and where. Note: that why does not have a place in this self-organization of polyethism. (For the nerdy: polyethism just refers to the division of labor, hence there is no need for why.)

There is a report, hot of the word processor of Marriott and Gershenson (1), who have two colonies of ants inside their computer. One colony has caste polyethism, whilst the other has age polyethism. They watched their colonies thrive, or not, depending on how their food was arranged from uniform availability to little random patches spread about their RAM. They also threw in variation in season length to jazz things up a little. In technical phraseology, they were given a dynamic environment.

To cut to the chase, changing your job with age was best as it was most flexible. If you were caste as a caste member, you could not re-caste yourself and if more workers were need to get the harvest in, your queen just had to lay more for you to bring up and send out. This only worked well if the seasons were very long. On the other hand, you could be as old as you felt and lie about your age, if your polyethism was temporal, and get old quickly. Turning back the clock was never allowed, though. Of course feeling old and being old become the same thing when there is no time to play.


arXiv:1104.3152v1 [cs.AI]

Smell of Success


Excitement abounds at Basel University Botanic Garden this weekend (1). Seventeen years of careful nurturing of its corm has been rewarded with the flowering of their Titan Arum. The plant popped its head out of the soil last month and has been growing rapidly, latterly at a tenth of an inch an hour, until the top of the flower is six feet above the soil.

                                                                                      Photo: U.S. Botanic Garden 
In Sumatra it’s called Bunga Bangkai (Corpse Flower) because it's perfume contains a healthy dose of cadaverine to attract its pollinators, the Flesh Flies and any beetles wandering around that clear up carrion. The flower produces large bright red berries that should definitely not be eaten. They contain a protein that is also found in parasites such as those that produce Sleeping Sickness.

Because these flowers are so large, they are in demand for all big botanical collections, however, to date there have only been 134 flowering events of plants in captivity. The first one to flower in the US was in 1937 at New York and caused sufficient excitement for the good citizens of the Bronx to claim it as their Official Flower in 1939. They must have got tired of waiting for it to flower again because they changed the official flower to the Day Lily in 2000.


Ohio State U has one called 'Woody' growing up fast and has a web cam focused on him/her(2).

  1. http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Stinking_giant_a_hit_in_Basel.html?cid=30069294
  2. http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~plantbio/greenhouse/

Ducking the Issue


Three days ago on April 20th, the post reported on the tactics used by sheep in maintaining optimum vigilance so as to avoid being eaten while eating. Ducks have similar problems when it comes to ending up as dinner. Zimmer et al of the U of Strasburg have just published their study on duck tactics (1). Tufted ducks, teals and mallards were all recruited to the program. It must be stressed that none ended up as that well-known French dish, Canard a l’Orange, (a recipe is given in reference 2).

The whole time budget for the ducks was recorded. That is the times that they allocated to watching, eating, preening and sleeping. This was for control groups, and groups that had a quiet period followed by a period of predation activity, followed by a period free of disturbance. As mentioned above none were actually eaten and predation was simulated by a fast moving model monster truck rushing at them like a fast moving terrestrial predator determined to dine on duck today. ( The truck was an E-Zilla FWD Hot-bodies™ for the nerdy who wish to check the results at their local duck pond.)

The groups of disturbed ducks, that is those who thought that the radio controlled truck had come to eat them, spent less time eating or preening. The fascinating result is that they did not spend more time keeping watch. So what did they do to balance the budget? They slept.

Sleeping may not seem to be the best strategy to avoid being eaten. However, ducks are light sleepers, and although they may not sleep with one eye open, they do frequently open one eye to take a peek and then it's back to sleep. This peek, sleep, peek cycle make it difficult to creep up on them. Perhaps this is why we invented shotguns?


  1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018977
  2. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/classic-duck-a-lorange-recipe/index.html

Busy Morning

It was a beautiful morning by the Ponds  today. The water level has peaked but it's still high. There was very little wind and the sun felt warm. Warm enough to get the turtles out sunning themselves on the logs, all jumbled up on top of each other.

 The big news though is that the ospreys are back in residence. Lots of new twigs and most of the grass kicked out of the nest. They are still in the middle of the makeover. However, they seemed a little shy about having their pictures taken by the paparazzi and went off for an early lunch over by the river.
 























Hatching has been going on apace and we’ll soon be tripping over goslings as the grass next to the sidewalk is particularly luscious but not too long for little beaks to cope with.


The youngsters are kept under control by uncles and aunts as well as mom and pop whether they are running about near the road or sailing majestically along as a flotilla.


So far there has been no sign of ducklings, ugly or otherwise, and they may have been scheduled for next months entertainment. As usual when the Ponds are full, the cormorants have decamped to other sites. I noticed that the pond behind the Fern Ridge Dam had a log with a dozen of them enjoying an after-lunch doze. I’m not sure what that locality has to offer compared to our ponds unless the rent is cheaper outside the city.


Moldy Choice


Orchids are freewheeling members of plant society. Some hang about in trees, accepting any handout that comes their way. Others are more down to earth, and put down roots. Even these are not trustworthy.

When plants require insects for pollination work, they offer a reward in the form of nectar for a job well done. Orchids are more slippery than that, as they make promises of food or sex to naïve insects with no intention of honoring the deal.

The latest con trick to be studied is with the slipper orchid Cypripedium fargesii found in China. The study by Ren et al is published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1). The chosen mark for the con trick in this case is the flat-footed fly which spends its lowly life munching on mold spores found in rotting vegetation.

The business end of the orchid has lots of little black spots that to you, me or a flat-footed fly look like black mold spores, laid out in a trail promising greater delights to those following it to the source deep within the flower. Exuding from the depths of the slipper comes the tantalizing odor of rotting vegetation with the promise of an abundance of tasty spores. The entrance is low so to get to the feast the fly has to brush against the orchid’s anthers and collects a pollen load but there is no lunch to be found. The hungry fly now rushes to the next promise offered by a nearby slipper. The only ones to get any benefits are the Cypripediums who are now sexually replete while the flatfoots are stomping around in a ravenous state.


http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/04/12/1103384108

Flock Wisdom


As a sheep munches on the grass, it has to make important decisions. However, we may not think of sheep as being widely known for their decision-making ability. But to a sheep, the decision to get its head down to munch grass or get its head up to look for wolves, or any hungry predator including the rustler with his truck and plans to sell lamb chops and legs of mutton, is just that. More heads up time means less food, simple but, as always, the risk assessment gets difficult at the boundary between hunger and security.

A part solution to the problem is to flock together and cooperate on sentry duty, and this has been universally adopted from time immemorial. At first sight, the bigger the group the better. With everyone doing their bit, the defense cost to an individual flocker is lower if the flock is larger. This is known as the ‘group size effect’ and as size matters, the flockers will make bigger flocks.

The problem is complacency. Doing your bit for defense in a flock or herd is voluntary, and if there are huge numbers, an individual has less incentive to volunteer. “Not my turn” can be baa’ed too often and a sneak attack from wolves intent on civilizing the flock can occur. Last Friday, a study of the problem was published (1). The authors were Michelena and Deneubourg from U libre de Bruxelles.

Firstly, their study showed that sheep do what sheep do. The tendency to vote with your neighbor resulted in more heads up awareness. Secondly, they highlight the challenge each individual has in balancing public and private information. It is this balance that governs the tempo, that is, whether lots of short heads down are favored over one long head down. The speed of information spread through the social network is key so setting a tempo which will minimize the response time to an attack while keeping the defense cost at a tolerable level. More sentry duty, less green stuff.

  1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018631

Fun Fishy Fact


The orangutans move around the Borneo forest by swinging among the trees and spending little time on the forest floor. Fruit is the larger part of their diet. They regularly eat figs, and keep regular. They have pretty strong stomachs and will eat the fruit of the climbing plant Strychnos ignatti, which is a source of strychnine. Most of us would keel over after breakfasting on those fruits but not the Orangs, they just drool a lot for a while. They also like honey and birds eggs, and will also indulge in insect eating.

Those Orangs living in Borneo appear to have been paying a lot of attention to current concerns over wellness and fitness programs. The physical exercise and lots of fruit have been a standard part of their lifestyle for a very long time. Minerals they get by occasionally coming down to earth and eating it.

But what about their omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids? Their only choice is fish, and that’s a problem because they can’t swim. Scavenging dead fish washed up at the edges of large ponds is not Cordon Bleu stuff – fresh is required for that. Russon has reported on their fishing tactics (1). They lean over a pond and stab at the catfish until they give themselves up and flop onto the shore in a panic.

Russon went to the trouble of directing a movie of this by stocking a pond with excitable young catfish extras and filming the stars jabbing away with great élan. Their little grey cells were much enhanced after their dinner. Now all they’ll need is to drink a glass of red wine a day, and maybe try and cut back on the strychnine.


  1. http://news.discovery.com/animals/orangutans-fishing-primates-fish-110418.html

Defensive Moves


Ants come in variety of shapes and sizes and live in large communities in which the various members cooperate to make the colony thrive. Colonies have different specialties, such as cutting leaves for fungal farms or the free range farming of aphids for honeydew. Ant colonies appreciate how well off they are, and will defend their patch vigorously if they can. Some species have nastier habits than others. For example, Protomagnathus americanus makes slave raids on adjacent colonies of other species to carry off brood. They don’t succeed without a fight of course, and the host colony can lose many workers and their queen while trying to defend their young.

Being raided and finding your young carried off is not something that a colony is willing to put up with, and a new study (1), by Pamminger et al from U of Munich, has shown how host colonies of Temnothorax curvipinosus mobilized their militias to seek and destroy any slavemaker spies who had infiltrated to assess the cost/benefit of a raid on their colony. The experiments were carried out under laboratory conditions to eliminate extraneous factors such as the seasons and competing colony crowding.

 A dead spy or two left lying about for a few minutes was enough to set off the chemical alarms and the militias cracked down. Non-nestmates who were not from the slavemakers were not treated so harshly, maybe roughed up a bit on occasion, though. No slavemaker scout was shown any mercy.

Mobilization took up to 5 minutes, and would last at peak for about 3 or 4 days, with a wind down over the next two weeks. The wind down occurred even though it was still raiding season, indicating that the their defense budget considerations came into play. Mobilization of militias is associated with costs. Such as lowering community foraging efficiency and the increased stress levels reducing longevity and brood production. And a well-run ant community has to work out a balanced budget based on resources and risk.


  1. http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/2/255.full

Drongos and Cuckoos


The Kalahari Desert appears to be an inhospitable place, but it’s prime real estate if you’re a meerkat. Hot in the day and cold at night is the typical desert weather. The mornings tend to be slow as everything warms up and the meerkats stand up to let the sun warm their chests, in that typical pose seen so often on posters. They dig around for insects but also munch on lizards and scorpions for lunch. With your head in the ground you’re a prime target for predators like hawks, so the troop has sentries standing guard who call a warning if one is seen and then they all dash for cover.

The fork-tailed drongo bird doesn’t have to time or inclination to go digging around, so it just mimics the meerkat alarm and pops down to steal their lunch. Flower from U of Cambridge has published the final version of his study of this sharp practice (1). The dreaded drongos are sharp enough to toss in a few genuine hawk alarms to maintain their credibility. If the meerkats aren’t working hard enough for the drongos, they are not beyond scaring the pied babblers and stealing their lunch instead.

Mimicry of a different order is the annual practice of cuckoos. Spottiswoode and Stevens from U of Cambridge (2) have recorded a defense being developed by some warblers against the cuckoo finch. Very discriminating species may spot slight differences in the cuckoo’s egg compared to their own. Not all warblers are that capable as the cuckoos are pretty capable mimics.

The latest defense strategy has been to lay lots of different colored and patterned eggs so the cuckoo’s egg is way out of fashion and stands out like last years design at a fashion show. The “oh so yesterday’s” egg is then pierced and kicked out. A high price for being unfashionable.



  1. T.Flower, Proc. R. Soc. B May 22, 2011 278:1548-1555
  2. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/04/05/rspb.2011.0401.full?sid=1ea23cb9-f497-4607-8183-4f7911b4b548

Whales Have Talent


Humpback whales have built a solid reputation as wandering troubadours, plying their trade across the South Pacific. The hotspot for song writing is off the eastern Australian coast where the singer/songwriters audition for the big time. The big time is really huge, as all the guys in a population learn the same song and sing it all the time.

These whale versions of Pop songs are split into verses, which are then repeated. Their tonal range is startling and the very low notes can carry enormous distances ensuring a wide audience. Recordings of humpbacks singing are widely available so we can groan and shriek along even if we don’t understand the words.

Whales being whales, and males to boot, are never quite satisfied with the product and must tune tweak and change verses, so their songs develop over time. Garland et al from U of Queensland have been avidly studying recordings and have just published their results (1,2). During the whale’s 4,000 mile singing tours, pirated copies of the songs turn up in local populations along the route, with the result that songs with the same roots are heard all across the Pacific, with local tweaks creeping in here and there of course.


  1. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(11)00291-0
  2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9457000/9457855.stm

At First Sight


Last year a cooperative octopus living in an aquarium in Germany predicted the Football World Cup winners. This skill was a revelation to most of us who only meet octopus on our dinner plates. Sadly that wily octopus is now dead, so all bets are off for the 2014 Cup games.

It turns out that octopuses are quite bright lovable creatures. People who study them are aware of their individual personalities, their propensity to learn and solve problems, their ability to communicate visually and that they can recognize their lab caretaker, even if they don’t offer them multiple simultaneous hugs.

Tricarico and her Italian colleagues reported this week on a study of how well octopuses know their neighbors (1). In the wild, they don’t fight with their established neighbors but they do establish a pecking order. The question naturally arises then as to how easy is it for a new immigrant to move into the ‘hood?

When strange octopuses were allowed to stare at each other for a while, they recognized each other when they met again.  They had already sized each other up at first sight and in some cases dominance hierarchies changed. There had been no need to put things to the test and therefore, no ink had been spilt.

If the first encounter was short, the assessment was recalled for a day or so, but if they were staying for a while, they remembered for a much longer period.  Hence in the wild, the ‘hood is quiet with no undue gang violence.

  1.   http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018710

Aging Gracefully


Fruit flies in your kitchen are annoying little critters as they are telling all your visitors that you have over ripe (that is, rotting or fermenting) fruit available. They have a short life cycle; egg to adult takes a week, so your fruit fly restaurant gets crowded very quickly. The other side of the coin is that they make a good model system for scientists to study population behavior and change

In a paper published on Tuesday, Zou et al (1) described a detailed video study of their behavior, minute by minute throughout their lifetime. There was no privacy here. They were monitored as they rested, walked, flew, fed, drank or just scratched themselves.  The study showed that fly activity increased as the flies grew to their prime and then slowed down as they went past middle age and became elderly. Elderly flies spent much more time hanging around in cluster at the top of their cage complaining about the state of their world, the pushy exuberance of the younger guys etc.

A good healthy diet for fruit flies is a sugar and yeast smoothy. This keeps them up and flying well. As we all know (I think), a poor diet can lead to premature aging. A bad diet for fruit flies is to leave their vitamin B on the side of their plates and just drink the sugar water.

Using their tendency to laze around gossiping in clusters instead of getting around to their daily flying tasks as the indicator for reaching middle age, the team showed that middle and old age arrived much earlier when the flies were eating just junk food. A poor diet made the flies relatively hyperactive and increased their tendency after lights-out to stay hanging around bemoaning the state of their world. Rushing about, hustling on a poor diet had them middle aged in half the time of those living on a better diet and having a more relaxed well balanced lifestyle.

        1.  http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018151

Extreme Dates


We are all familiar with the nasty habits of female spiders and praying mantises eating their male friends after, or in some cases during, satisfying their lustful desires. However, it is always interesting to see someone bucking the trend, and when it comes to a whole species, it is even more compelling reading.

The Brazilian Wolf spider, Allocosa brasiliensis, who lurks in burrows in the sand prior to rushing out at night to grab an early breakfast, has settled on role reversal as a strategy for breeding success. Aisenberg et al from Clemente Estable Istitute, Montevideo.  In Uruguay have published a study (1) of 20 male Wolf spiders who were introduced to sprightly virgins and more experienced heavy bodied mated females.

The big boys ate 10% of the virgins on offer, but attacked 40% of the old gals and munched their way through 25% of the total on offer. The explanation is in the "extreme mate choice hypothesis" which the guys are going to go for the gals who will be most productive. The rest are lunch.

I guess guys will be guys and will be attracked to extreme sports. But these Wolf spiders seem to be determined to have their cake and eat it.


  1. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2011.01631.x/abstract

More Gosling Pictures




First Batch Hatch


The gosling hatch has commenced and the sitting around doing nothing is beginning to pay off, if you are a goose that is. These are the early birds. Some pairs still seem to be wandering about and can’t quite seem to concentrate on the job at hand. But there is a lot less squabbling going on and the ponds are peaceful.

Recent rains have brought the river level back up and the ponds are now at the highest that I’ve seen them. Some of the recent plantings are barely showing a tip above the water level. The cormorants are on vacation. The turtles are all over their abandoned logs, like huge barnacles whenever there is a hint of sun. Even a rumor seems to bring them out.

Some of the heron’s are working hard around the edges of the ponds. Their treetop nests are now well hidden by leaf growth. It is too soon to see if there are any chicks.



A Mug's Game


Whether we are old style hunter-gatherers in the forest or on the savannah, or are doing the equivalent in today’s modern, high tech world, cooperation between individuals in a group is a major factor in achieving success. How best to engender that cooperation is the subject matter of many books on the art of management and has turned many management consultants into fat cats. The usual recommended incentives are a blend of bonuses and punishments.

The laboratories most of the work is based on are in the field, with no controls and highly variable inputs. A new study by Pan and Houser of George Mason U (1) was carried out under regular laboratory conditions.  A large group of students were rounded up and handed a wad of experimental ‘green stuff’ to play an investment game. There were multiple rounds and sufficient controls to prevent corporate raids and other such capitalistic activities. The idea was for the groups to ‘invest’ in a project and the winners were the group that invested most generously. The kicker was that the bids were sealed so investment hysteria was out.

Of course games have winners and winners have prizes. In some rounds the prize was ice-cream. High quality of course, as would be suitable for future fat cats. In other rounds, the prizes were decorative mugs, suitable for prominent display on their desks, and of sufficient grandeur to brings ‘oohs and aahs’ from visiting friends and family.

The young women couldn’t get worked up enough to cooperate strongly for mugs. They went for the ice-cream. The young men in stark contrast were ambivalent when ice-cream was the reward, but would all invest heavily to win a trophy mug.

Those mugs would be permanently on display; announcing to the world the high status of those young men as Winners.

The long-term gains of the winning women might start off being on display, but perhaps not permanently after a spell of dieting.


1. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018050#s3