Task Allocation and Partitioning of Social Insects - Response-Threshold Model

Response-Threshold Model

A dominant theory of explaining the self-organized division of labor in social insect societies such as honey bee colonies is the Response-Threshold Model. It predicts that individual worker bees have inherent thresholds to stimuli associated with different tasks. Individuals with the lowest thresholds will preferentially perform that task. Stimuli could include the “search time” that elapses while a foraging bee waits to unload her nectar and pollen to a receiver bee at the hive, the smell of diseased brood cells, or any other combination of environmental inputs that an individual worker bee encounters. The Response-Threshold Model only provides for effective task allocation in the honey bee colony if thresholds are varied among individual workers. This variation originates from the considerable genetic diversity among worker daughters of a colony due to the queen’s multiple matings.