Task Allocation and Partitioning of Social Insects - Note: Model-building

Note: Model-building

All models are simplified abstractions of the real-life situation. There exists a basic tradeoff between model precision and parameter precision. A fixed amount of information collected, will, if split amongst the many parameters of an overly precise model, result in at least some of the parameters being represented by inadequate sample sizes. Because of the often limited quantities and limited precision of data from which to calculate parameters values in non-human behavior studies, such models should generally be kept simple. Therefore we generally should not expect models for social insect task allocation or task partitioning to be as elaborate as human workflow ones, for example.