Task Allocation and Partitioning of Social Insects - Task Taxonomy and Complexity

Task Taxonomy and Complexity

Anderson, Franks, and McShea have broken down insect tasks (and subtasks) into a hierarchical taxonomy; their focus is on task partitioning and its complexity implications. They classify tasks as individual, group, team, or partitioned; classification of a task depends on whether there are multiple vs. individual workers, whether there is division of labor, and whether subtasks are done concurrently or sequentially. Note that in their classification, in order for an action to be considered a task, it must contribute positively to inclusive fitness; if it must be combined with other actions to achieve that goal, it is considered to be a subtask. In their simple model, they award 1, 2, or 3 points to the different tasks and subtasks, depending on its above classification. Summing all tasks and subtasks point values down through all levels of nesting allows any task to be given a score that roughly ranks relative complexity of actions. See also the review of task partitioning by Ratnieks and Anderson.