Symbioses include some of the clearest cases of coevolution, but their origin, loss or reassembly with different partners can rarely be inferred. Here we use ant/plant symbioses involving three plant clades to investigate the evolution of symbioses. We generated phylogenies for the big-eyed arboreal ants (Pseudomyrmecinae), including 72% of their 286 species, as well as for five of their plant ...

Host-associated organisms (e.g., parasites, commensals, and mutualists) may rely on their hosts for only a portion of their life cycle. The life-history traits and physiology of hosts are well-known determinants of the biodiversity of their associated organisms. The environmental context may strongly influence this interaction, but the relative roles of host traits and the environment are poorl...

The role of different foraging strategies in the coexistence of ant species is poorly understood. In this study, we examined the effects of accessibility of food resource (more / less accessible environment) and food type (carbohydrates and protein) on discovery dominance trade off, and which foraging traits are related this trade off in a guild of ants attending lac insect (Kerria yunnanensis ...

Eleven anti-neurofilament (anti-NF) monoclonal antibodies were studied for their reactivity with heat-stable, microtubule-associated proteins and Alzheimer neurofibrillary tangles (ANT). On immunoblots of NF proteins, the antibodies recognized epitopes that were variably sensitive to Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase. Eight of the antibodies showed reactivity with ANT and decreased binding ...

This paper presents an application of the Ant colony optimization metaheuristic to the job shop scheduling problem. A pheromone alteration strategy which improves the basic ant system by utilizing the behaviour of artificial ants to perform local search is introduced. Experiments using well-known benchmark JSSP problems show that this approach improves on the performance obtained by the basic a...

Ant colony optimization is an ant algorithm framework that took inspiration from foraging behavior of ant colonies. Indeed, ACO algorithms use a chemical communication, represented by pheromone trails, to build good solutions. However, ants involve different communication channels to interact. Thus, this paper introduces the acoustic communication between ants while they are foraging. This proc...

Eight new species of the genus Batrisodes Reitter are described from continental China, seven of which were found in association with ants: B. abdominalissp. n. and B. tianmuensissp. n. with an Ectomomyrmex ant from Zhejiang; B. grossussp. n. with an Odontomachus ant from Guangxi; B. simianshanussp. n. with an Aphaenogaster ant from Chongqing; B. qiuluisp. n. with a Pheidole ant, B. xuhaoisp. n...

Based on the increased interest in ANT in Media Studies, this paper discusses similarities and differences in the epistemological premises of ANT and German Media Studies and, in particular, Media Aesthetics. Proceeding from well received ANT investigations on the transformational processes of scientific research and the discussion of their importance and suitability for media aesthetic approac...

Ant colony algorithm, a heuristic simulated algorithm, provides better solutions for non-convex, non-linear and discontinuous optimization problems. For ant colony algorithm, it is frequently to be trapped into local optimum, which might lead to stagnation. This article presents the city-select strategy, local pheromone update strategy, optimum solution prediction strategy and local optimizatio...

A proof of convergence for Ant algorithms is developed. Ant algorithms were modeled as branching random processes: the branching random walk and branching Wiener process to derive rates of birth and death of ant paths. Substitution is then carried out in birth-death processes, which proves that a stable distribution is surely reached. This indicates that Ant algorithms converge with probability...