The duration of interaction events in a society is a fundamental measure of its collective nature and potentially reflects variability in individual behavior. Here we performed a high-throughput measurement of trophallaxis and face-to-face event durations experienced by a colony of honeybees over their entire lifetimes. The interaction time distribution is heavy-tailed, as previously reported for human face-to-face interactions. We developed a theory of pair interactions that takes into account individual variability and predicts the scaling behavior for both bee and extant human datasets. The individual variability of worker honeybees was nonzero but less than that of humans, possibly reflecting their greater genetic relatedness. Our work shows how individual differences can lead to universal patterns of behavior that transcend species and specific mechanisms for social interactions

Sang Hyun Choi, Vikyath D. Rao, Tim Gernat, Adam R. Hamilton, Gene E. Robinson and Nigel Goldenfeld ()
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Sang Hyun Choi: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Vikyath D. Rao: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Tim Gernat: Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; Swarm Intelligence and Complex Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
Adam R. Hamilton: Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Gene E. Robinson: Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801
Nigel Goldenfeld: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020, vol. 117, issue 50, 31754-31759

Keywords: social network; individuality; heavy-tailed distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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