表題番号:2011B-081 日付:2012/04/11
研究課題待ち行列理論による社会性動物の協調行動の分析
研究者所属(当時) 資格 氏名
(代表者) 商学学術院 教授 豊泉 洋
研究成果概要
本研究では、自然界で実際に見られる協力関係のグループダイナミックスを一つのシステムとし てモデル化し、そのシステムに対して待ち行列理論を用いることにより、グループ全体の性能を分析した。特に、マレーシアに見られるhover waspが女王の座を巡って作る待ち行列に関する実際のデータを解析し、Markov chain によりモデル化し、その特性を分析した。

A wide variety of animals are known to form simple hierarchical groups called social queues, where individuals inherit resources or social status in a predictable order. Queues are often age-based, so that a new individual joins the end of the queue on reaching adulthood, and must wait for older individuals to die in order to reach the front of the queue. While waiting, an individual may work for her group, in the process often risking her own survival and hence her chance of inheri- tance. Eventually, she may survive to reach the head of the queue and becomes the dominant of the group. Queueing has been particularly well-studied in hover wasps (Hymenoptera: Stenogastrinae). In hover wasp social groups, only one female lays eggs, and there is a strict, age-based queue to inherit the reproductive position. While the dominant individual (queen) concentrates on breeding, subordinate helpers risk death by foraging outside the nest, but have a slim chance of eventually inheriting dominance. Some explanations for this altruistic behavior and for the stability of social queues have been proposed and analyzed [Field et al., 2006; Kokko and Johnstone, 1999]. Since both the productivity of the nest and the chance to inherit the dominant position depend critically on group size, queueing dynamics are crucial for understanding social queues, but detailed analy- sis is lacking. Here, using hover wasps as an example, we demonstrate that some basic queueing theory[Toyoizumi, 2008] and non-homogeneous birth and death processes are useful for analyzing queueing dynamics and the population demographics of social queues. Our work leads to better understanding of how environmental conditions and strategic decision-making by individuals inter- act to produce the observed group dynamics; and in turn, how group dynamics affects individual decision-making.