Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals
Abstract The formation of groups of interacting individuals improves performance and fitness in many decentralised systems, from micro-organisms to social insects, from robotic swarms to artificial intelligence algorithms. Often, group formation and high-level coordination in these systems emerge fr...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Nature Communications |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43099-0 |
| _version_ | 1827709711204483072 |
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| author | Cristóvão S. Dias Manish Trivedi Giovanni Volpe Nuno A. M. Araújo Giorgio Volpe |
| author_facet | Cristóvão S. Dias Manish Trivedi Giovanni Volpe Nuno A. M. Araújo Giorgio Volpe |
| author_sort | Cristóvão S. Dias |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The formation of groups of interacting individuals improves performance and fitness in many decentralised systems, from micro-organisms to social insects, from robotic swarms to artificial intelligence algorithms. Often, group formation and high-level coordination in these systems emerge from individuals with limited information-processing capabilities implementing low-level rules of communication to signal to each other. Here, we show that, even in a community of clueless individuals incapable of processing information and communicating, a dynamic environment can coordinate group formation by transiently storing memory of the earlier passage of individuals. Our results identify a new mechanism of indirect coordination via shared memory that is primarily promoted and reinforced by dynamic environmental factors, thus overshadowing the need for any form of explicit signalling between individuals. We expect this pathway to group formation to be relevant for understanding and controlling self-organisation and collective decision making in both living and artificial active matter in real-life environments. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T17:26:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cab7cf535fc940a7823fe5c8b0054242 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2041-1723 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T17:26:49Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nature Communications |
| spelling | doaj.art-cab7cf535fc940a7823fe5c8b00542422023-11-20T10:10:12ZengNature PortfolioNature Communications2041-17232023-11-0114111110.1038/s41467-023-43099-0Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individualsCristóvão S. Dias0Manish Trivedi1Giovanni Volpe2Nuno A. M. Araújo3Giorgio Volpe4Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de LisboaDepartment of Chemistry, University College LondonDepartment of Physics, University of GothenburgDepartamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de LisboaDepartment of Chemistry, University College LondonAbstract The formation of groups of interacting individuals improves performance and fitness in many decentralised systems, from micro-organisms to social insects, from robotic swarms to artificial intelligence algorithms. Often, group formation and high-level coordination in these systems emerge from individuals with limited information-processing capabilities implementing low-level rules of communication to signal to each other. Here, we show that, even in a community of clueless individuals incapable of processing information and communicating, a dynamic environment can coordinate group formation by transiently storing memory of the earlier passage of individuals. Our results identify a new mechanism of indirect coordination via shared memory that is primarily promoted and reinforced by dynamic environmental factors, thus overshadowing the need for any form of explicit signalling between individuals. We expect this pathway to group formation to be relevant for understanding and controlling self-organisation and collective decision making in both living and artificial active matter in real-life environments.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43099-0 |
| spellingShingle | Cristóvão S. Dias Manish Trivedi Giovanni Volpe Nuno A. M. Araújo Giorgio Volpe Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals Nature Communications |
| title | Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals |
| title_full | Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals |
| title_fullStr | Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals |
| title_full_unstemmed | Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals |
| title_short | Environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals |
| title_sort | environmental memory boosts group formation of clueless individuals |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43099-0 |
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