ABSTRACT
The MANTA project, already described in Drogoul et al. (1992a, b) and Ferber and Drogoul (1992), is an application of the EthoModelling Framework (EMF) to the simulation of the social organization of ant colonies. EMF is based on the principles of multi-agent simulation (for a formal definition, see Ferber & Drogoul 1992), which means that each individual in a population is represented by an artificial entity whose behaviour is programmed (computationally speaking) with all the required details (for other works on multi-agent simulation see Gilbert & Doran 1994, Hogeweg & Hesper 1985, Collins & Jefferson 1991). Multi-agent simulations are of most help in modelling situations in which individuals have different complex behaviours and where the interactions involve so much non-linearity that they cannot be described easily within a mathematical framework. Our aim with MANTA is to test hypotheses about the way in which social structures, such as a division of labour, emerge as a consequence of the behaviour and interactions of individuals. In other words, we want to evaluate the minimal set of causes that has to be provided at the micro-level to observe definite structures at the macro-level.
