All Outputs (40)

Digging the optimum pit: Antlions, spirals and spontaneous stratification (2019)
Journal Article
Franks, N. R., Worley, A., Falkenberg, M., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Christensen, K. (2019). Digging the optimum pit: Antlions, spirals and spontaneous stratification. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286(1899), 20190365. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0365

Most animal traps are constructed from self-secreted silk, so antlions are rare among trap builders because they use only materials found in the environment. We show how antlions exploit the properties of the substrate to produce very effective struc... Read More about Digging the optimum pit: Antlions, spirals and spontaneous stratification.

Social flocculation in plant–animal worms (2019)
Journal Article
Worley, A., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2019). Social flocculation in plant–animal worms. Royal Society Open Science, 6(3), Article 181626. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181626

Individual animals can often move more safely or more efficiently as members of a group. This can be as simple as safety in numbers or as sophisticated as aerodynamic or hydrodynamic cooperation. Here, we show that individual plant–animal worms (Syms... Read More about Social flocculation in plant–animal worms.

Asymmetric ommatidia count and behavioural lateralization in the ant Temnothorax albipennis (2018)
Journal Article
Hunt, E., Dornan, S., Sendova-Franks, A., & Franks, N. (2018). Asymmetric ommatidia count and behavioural lateralization in the ant Temnothorax albipennis. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 5825. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-23652-4

© 2018 The Author(s). Workers of the house-hunting ant Temnothorax albipennis rely on visual edge following and landmark recognition to navigate their rocky environment, and they also exhibit a leftward turning bias when exploring unknown nest sites.... Read More about Asymmetric ommatidia count and behavioural lateralization in the ant Temnothorax albipennis.

Plant-animal worms round themselves up in circular mills on the beach (2018)
Journal Article
Sendova-Franks, A., Franks, N., & Worley, A. (2018). Plant-animal worms round themselves up in circular mills on the beach. Royal Society Open Science, 5(7), https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180665

© 2018 The Authors. Collective motion is a fascinating and intensely studied manifestation of collective behaviour. Circular milling is an impressive example. It occurs in fishes, processionary caterpillars and army ants, among others. Its adaptive s... Read More about Plant-animal worms round themselves up in circular mills on the beach.

Complementary landmarks facilitate ant navigation (2018)
Journal Article
Hunt, E., Kendall, C., Stanbury, E., Sendova-Franks, A., & Franks, N. (2018). Complementary landmarks facilitate ant navigation. Behavioural Processes, 157, 702-710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.03.004

© 2018 The Authors Visual landmarks are important navigational aids to many animals, and when more than one is available their juxtaposition can convey valuable new information to a navigator about progress toward a goal, depending on the landmarks’... Read More about Complementary landmarks facilitate ant navigation.

Measuring site fidelity and spatial segregation within animal societies (2017)
Journal Article
Sendova-Franks, A. B., Franks, N. R., Richardson, T. O., & Giuggioli, L. (2017). Measuring site fidelity and spatial segregation within animal societies. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 8(8), 965-975. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12751

© 2017 The Authors. Methods in Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. Animals often display a marked tendency to return to previously visited locations that contain important resources, suc... Read More about Measuring site fidelity and spatial segregation within animal societies.

Variability in individual assessment behaviour and its implications for collective decision-making (2017)
Journal Article
Franks, N. R., O’shea-Wheller, T. A., Masuda, N., & Sendova-Franks, A. B. (2017). Variability in individual assessment behaviour and its implications for collective decision-making. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1848), https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.2237

© 2017 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Self-organized systems of collective behaviour have been demonstrated in a number of group-living organisms. There is, however, less research relating to how variation in indiv... Read More about Variability in individual assessment behaviour and its implications for collective decision-making.

A social mechanism facilitates ant colony emigrations over different distances (2016)
Journal Article
Franks, N. R., Edgley, D. E., Wilson-Aggarwal, D. K., O'Shea-Wheller, T. A., O'Shea-Wheller, T., Wilson-Aggarwal, D., …Franks, N. (2016). A social mechanism facilitates ant colony emigrations over different distances. Journal of Experimental Biology, 219(21), 3439-3446. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.145276

© 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. Behavioural responses enable animals to react rapidly to fluctuating environments. In eusocial organisms, such changes are often enacted at the group level, but may be organised in a decentralised f... Read More about A social mechanism facilitates ant colony emigrations over different distances.

Ants determine their next move at rest: Motor planning and causality in complex systems (2016)
Journal Article
Hunt, E. R., Baddeley, R. J., Worley, A., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2016). Ants determine their next move at rest: Motor planning and causality in complex systems. Royal Society Open Science, 3(1), 150534. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150534

© 2016 The Authors. To find useful work to do for their colony, individual eusocial animals have to move, somehow staying attentive to relevant social information. Recent research on individual Temnothorax albipennis ants moving inside their colony’s... Read More about Ants determine their next move at rest: Motor planning and causality in complex systems.

The effect of social information on the collective choices of ant colonies (2016)
Journal Article
Burns, D. D., Burns, D., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2016). The effect of social information on the collective choices of ant colonies. Behavioral Ecology, 27(4), 1033-1040. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arw005

© 2016 The Author. In collective decision making, groups collate social information to inform their decisions. Indeed, societies can gather more information than individuals - so social information can be more reliable than private information. Colon... Read More about The effect of social information on the collective choices of ant colonies.

Exploration adjustment by ant colonies (2016)
Journal Article
Sendova-Franks, A., Stumpe, M. C., Doran, C., Stumpe, M., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2016). Exploration adjustment by ant colonies. Royal Society Open Science, 3(1), 150533. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150533

© 2016 The Authors. How do animals in groups organize their work? Division of labour, i.e. the process by which individuals within a group choose which tasks to perform, has been extensively studied in social insects. Variability among individuals wi... Read More about Exploration adjustment by ant colonies.

Migration control: A distance compensation strategy in ants (2016)
Journal Article
O’shea-Wheller, T. A., O'Shea-Wheller, T., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2016). Migration control: A distance compensation strategy in ants. Naturwissenschaften, 103(7), article 66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-016-1386-8

©The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. Migratory behaviour forms an intrinsic part of the life histories of many organisms but is often a high-risk process. Consequently, varied strategies have evolved to... Read More about Migration control: A distance compensation strategy in ants.

Differentiated anti-predation responses in a superorganism (2015)
Journal Article
O'Shea-Wheller, T. A., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2015). Differentiated anti-predation responses in a superorganism. PLoS ONE, 10(11), e0141012. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141012

© 2015 O'Shea-Wheller et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source... Read More about Differentiated anti-predation responses in a superorganism.

How ants use quorum sensing to estimate the average quality of a fluctuating resource (2015)
Journal Article
Franks, N. R., Stuttard, J. P., Doran, C., Esposito, J. C., Master, M. C., Sendova-Franks, A. B., …Britton, N. F. (2015). How ants use quorum sensing to estimate the average quality of a fluctuating resource. Scientific Reports, 5(11890), https://doi.org/10.1038/srep11890

© 2015, Nature Publishing Group. All rights reserved. We show that one of the advantages of quorum-based decision-making is an ability to estimate the average value of a resource that fluctuates in quality. By using a quorum threshold, namely the num... Read More about How ants use quorum sensing to estimate the average quality of a fluctuating resource.

Social behaviour and collective motion in plant-animal worms (2015)
Journal Article
Stumpe, M. C., Grant, K. A., Franks, N. R., Worley, A., Grant, K. A. G., Gorman, A. R., …Sendova-Franks, A. B. (2015). Social behaviour and collective motion in plant-animal worms. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 283(1825), 20152946. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2946

© 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Social behaviour may enable organisms to occupy ecological niches that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Here, we test this major evolutionary prin- ciple by demonstratin... Read More about Social behaviour and collective motion in plant-animal worms.

Universality in ant behaviour (2015)
Journal Article
Christensen, K., Papavassiliou, D., De Figueiredo, A., Franks, N. R., & Sendova-Franks, A. B. (2015). Universality in ant behaviour. Interface, 12(102), https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.0985

© 2014 The Authors. Prediction for social systems is a major challenge. Universality at the social level has inspired a unified theory for urban living but individual variation makes predicting relationships within societies difficult. Here, we show... Read More about Universality in ant behaviour.

Trail laying during tandem-running recruitment in the ant Temnothorax albipennis (2014)
Journal Article
Basari, N., Laird-Hopkins, B. C., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2014). Trail laying during tandem-running recruitment in the ant Temnothorax albipennis. Naturwissenschaften, 101(7), 549-556. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1191-1

Tandem running is a recruitment strategy whereby one ant leads a single naïve nest mate to a resource. While tandem running progresses towards the goal, the leader ant and the follower ant maintain contact mainly by tactile signals. In this paper, we... Read More about Trail laying during tandem-running recruitment in the ant Temnothorax albipennis.

Landmarks and ant search strategies after interrupted tandem runs (2013)
Journal Article
Bruendl, A. C., Basari, N., Hemingway, C. E., Roberts, N. W., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2014). Landmarks and ant search strategies after interrupted tandem runs. Journal of Experimental Biology, 217(6), 944-954. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.087296

© 2014. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. During a tandem run, a single leading ant recruits a single follower to an important resource such as a new nest. To examine this process, we used a motorized gantry, which has not previously been u... Read More about Landmarks and ant search strategies after interrupted tandem runs.

Nest-seeking rock ants (Temnothorax albipennis) trade off sediment packing density and structural integrity for ease of cavity excavation (2013)
Journal Article
Minter, N. J., Minter, N. J., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2013). Nest-seeking rock ants (Temnothorax albipennis) trade off sediment packing density and structural integrity for ease of cavity excavation. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 67(11), 1745-1756. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-013-1582-x

We investigated excavation and nest site choice across sediment-filled cavities in the ant Temnothorax albipennis. Colonies were presented with sediment-filled cavities, covering a spectrum from ones that should be quick to excavate but will form a w... Read More about Nest-seeking rock ants (Temnothorax albipennis) trade off sediment packing density and structural integrity for ease of cavity excavation.

Economic investment by ant colonies in searches for better homes (2013)
Journal Article
Doran, C., Pearce, T., Connor, A., Schlegel, T., Franklin, E., Sendova-Franks, A. B., & Franks, N. R. (2013). Economic investment by ant colonies in searches for better homes. Biology Letters, 9(5), 20130685. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0685

Organisms should invest more in gathering information when the pay-off from finding a profitable resource is likely to be greater. Here, we ask whether animal societies put more effort in scouting for a new nest when their current one is of low quali... Read More about Economic investment by ant colonies in searches for better homes.