Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms
Collective animal behaviour occurs at nearly every biological size scale, from single-celled organisms to the largest animals on earth. It has long been known that models with simple interaction rules can reproduce qualitative features of this complex behaviour. But determining whether these models...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Nature Publishing Group
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88206 |
| _version_ | 1826200869317640192 |
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| author | Kelley, Douglas H. Ouellette, Nicholas T. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering Kelley, Douglas H. Ouellette, Nicholas T. |
| author_sort | Kelley, Douglas H. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Collective animal behaviour occurs at nearly every biological size scale, from single-celled organisms to the largest animals on earth. It has long been known that models with simple interaction rules can reproduce qualitative features of this complex behaviour. But determining whether these models accurately capture the biology requires data from real animals, which has historically been difficult to obtain. Here, we report three-dimensional, time-resolved measurements of the positions, velocities, and accelerations of individual insects in laboratory swarms of the midge Chironomus riparius. Even though the swarms do not show an overall polarisation, we find statistical evidence for local clusters of correlated motion. We also show that the swarms display an effective large-scale potential that keeps individuals bound together, and we characterize the shape of this potential. Our results provide quantitative data against which the emergent characteristics of animal aggregation models can be benchmarked. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:43:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/88206 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:43:00Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/882062022-10-01T05:28:34Z Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms Kelley, Douglas H. Ouellette, Nicholas T. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering Kelley, Douglas H. Collective animal behaviour occurs at nearly every biological size scale, from single-celled organisms to the largest animals on earth. It has long been known that models with simple interaction rules can reproduce qualitative features of this complex behaviour. But determining whether these models accurately capture the biology requires data from real animals, which has historically been difficult to obtain. Here, we report three-dimensional, time-resolved measurements of the positions, velocities, and accelerations of individual insects in laboratory swarms of the midge Chironomus riparius. Even though the swarms do not show an overall polarisation, we find statistical evidence for local clusters of correlated motion. We also show that the swarms display an effective large-scale potential that keeps individuals bound together, and we characterize the shape of this potential. Our results provide quantitative data against which the emergent characteristics of animal aggregation models can be benchmarked. United States. Army Research Office (Grant W911Nf-12-1-0517) 2014-07-08T18:47:24Z 2014-07-08T18:47:24Z 2013-01 2012-09 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2045-2322 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88206 Kelley, Douglas H., and Nicholas T. Ouellette. “Emergent Dynamics of Laboratory Insect Swarms.” Sci. Rep. 3 (January 15, 2013). en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep01073 Scientific Reports Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ application/pdf Nature Publishing Group Nature Publishing Group |
| spellingShingle | Kelley, Douglas H. Ouellette, Nicholas T. Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| title | Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| title_full | Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| title_fullStr | Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| title_full_unstemmed | Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| title_short | Emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| title_sort | emergent dynamics of laboratory insect swarms |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88206 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kelleydouglash emergentdynamicsoflaboratoryinsectswarms AT ouellettenicholast emergentdynamicsoflaboratoryinsectswarms |