Systems Biology of Group Decision Making

Systems biology of decision making focuses on understanding the structures, dynamics, and evolution of complex interconnected biological mechanisms that support decision making by individuals and social animal groups. In this article, an experimentally validated mathematical model of the nest-site selection process of honey bee swarms is introduced. In this spatially distributed dynamical feedback process individual bee actions and bee-to-bee communications combine to produce an emergent "consensus" nest choice. The process has connections to neurobiological cognition systems, especially at the behavioral level: the swarm can effectively discriminate between different quality nest sites and eliminate from consideration relatively inferior distractor sites. Simulations indicate that individual-level bee decision-making mechanisms have been tuned by natural selection to provide a balance between the need for fast and accurate decisions at the group level. Theoretical analyses of the properties of the dynamics of swarm decision making are outlined, and potential implications in engineering are briefly highlighted