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Abstract:
Trophallaxis, the regurgitation and mouth to mouth transfer of liquid food between members of eusocial insect
societies, is an important process that allows the fast and efficient dissemination of food in the colony. Trophallactic
systems are typically treated as a network of agent interactions. This approach, though valuable, does not easily
lend itself to analytic predictions. In this work we consider a simple trophallactic system of randomly interacting
agents with finite carrying capacity, and calculate analytically and via a series of simulations the global food
intake rate for the whole colony as well as observables describing how uniformly the food is distributed within
the nest. Our model and predictions provide a useful benchmark to assess to what level the observed food uptake
rates and efficiency in food distribution is due to stochastic effects or specific trophallactic strategies by the
ant colony. Our work also serves as a stepping stone to describing the collective properties of more complex
trophallactic systems, such as those including division of labor between foragers and workers.
