BioInspired! So What? Now What!

In eusocial organisms division of labour occurs in a self-regulatory way. Individuals are not genetically determined to undertake one task or another, and there is no single individual that plays the role of a manager and tells the rest what they need to do. And although such a high level of self-organisation is ubiquitous, its fundamental mechanism is unknown. In ant colonies, it has been observed that the tasks that individuals perform have a relationship with their spatial location. We use this information to propose a simple model that can lead to similar patterns to those found in division of labour in ant colonies. In a more elaborated form, models using the same principle serve to describe human mobility in urban systems; although we need to consider that more complex interactions and externalities intervene in the distribution of functionalities in cities. We argue that understanding these ubiquitous mechanisms in “simpler” systems, can give us powerful insights to plan for more resilient cities.

 

Elsa Arcaute is a Lecturer in Spatial Modelling and Complexity at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London.