The ecology of collective behavior in changing environments

Collective behavior operates as a distributed system without central control, using networks of interactions that in the aggregate allow the system to adjust to the current situation.. Collective behavior is extremely diverse. I will suggest hypotheses for how ecology shapes the evolution of collective behavior so that the dynamics of behavior, in rate, feedback regime and modularity of interaction networks, fits the dynamics of the environment. As examples I will discuss the regulation of foraging behavior in two ant species, harvester ants in the desert and turtle ants in the tropical forest. These examples point to general trends in how collective behavior evolves in particular environments to respond to changing conditions.