The 20-Meter Rule
In the Arizona desert, harvester ant colonies space themselves roughly 20 meters apart. No ant measures this distance. No colony claims territory with borders.
The spacing emerges from encounter rates at colony boundaries.
Boundary Negotiation
When ants from neighboring colonies meet:
- They detect foreign colony odor (different hydrocarbon profile)
- Brief aggressive displays may occur
- Both ants retreat toward their respective nests
- Over thousands of such encounters, a boundary stabilizes
No negotiation. No agreement. Just repeated local interactions creating a stable equilibrium.
Information Leakage
Boundaries aren't walls. Pheromone trails from one colony can drift into another's territory. This creates interesting dynamics:
- A successful foraging trail may be "discovered" by neighbors
- Colonies may learn from each other's successes (stigmergic espionage)
- Competition drives innovation—colonies evolve different strategies
Application: Multi-Colony Federation
In AgentVerse, multiple colonies could:
- Share a common TypeDB environment
- Maintain identity through colony-specific markers
- Compete and cooperate through stigmergic signals
- Learn from each other's superhighways
"Borders emerge from behavior, not from maps."