Collective motion in biological systems

Deutsch, Andreas; Théraulaz, Guy; Vicsek, Tamás

doi:10.1098/rsfs.2012.0048

Cited by 66 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The ability to maintain group cohesion both within and between mono-specific aggregations despite rapid changes in animal density during an external perturbation like predation may be augmented by the fact the aggregations are topological rather than metric in total dimension (Ballerini et al 2008). It is important to recognize, however, that these group dimensions emerge as a result of collective movement (Deutsch et al 2012) and the patterns we observed to do not tell us about the mechanisms of information transfer or movement that led to them. Discretely bounded, organized animal groups, 'schools', within oceanic scattering layers have not been previously discovered because they are nestled amidst a background of similar animal densities, unlike other swarms which are typically defined by a change in biomass on a neutral background.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Prey in oceanic sound scattering layers organize to get a little help from their friends

Benoit‐Bird

Moline

Southall

2017

Limnology & Oceanography

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Group formation in animals is a widespread phenomenon driven by food acquisition, reproduction, and defense. Life in the ocean is characteristically aggregated into horizontally extensive layers as a result of strong vertical gradients in the environment. Each day, animals in high biomass aggregations called "deep scattering layers" migrate vertically, comprising the largest net animal movement on earth. This movement is commonly thought of as a predator avoidance tactic, however, the aggregation of animals into layers has been viewed as an incidental outcome of similar responses by many individuals to the risk of visual predation coupled with the location of resources including food and oxygen rather than active, socially mediated congregation for defense purposes. Here, using a newly adapted autonomous vehicle to measure individual characteristics, we provide the first measures of the internal layer structure, demonstrating that these features are made up of many topologically scaled, mono-specific aggregations, or "schools" rather than an indiscriminate mix of sizes and species. Schools responded to predators using behavior much like flash compression while neighboring aggregations increased their spacing to maintain coherent layers. Rather than simply an incidental outcome, the formation of layers of life in the sea is a highly organized process driven, at least in part, by biotic pressures for cohesion with broad adaptive significance for the myriad species that inhabit these ubiquitous features. These observations highlight the range of spatial scales we must examine in order to understand the strong impacts these high-biomass layers have on ecological and biogeochemical processes in the sea.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Prey in oceanic sound scattering layers organize to get a little help from their friends

Benoit‐Bird

Moline

Southall

2017

Limnology & Oceanography

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“…Collective motion (CM) is observed in a broad range of biological systems, including bird flocks, fish schools, herds of quadrupeds, insect swarms and groups of bacteria [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In recent years, these systems (referred to here, generically, as swarms) have been the subject of intense research [7][8][9][10]. In theoretical studies, several models have been introduced to analyse their dynamical properties, their ability to process information collectively, and the components that are necessary to produce CM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The prevailing paradigm in the theory of CM has been strongly influenced by the seminal work of Vicsek et al [12]. This paper introduced a minimal model for flocking, the Vicsek model, that has become a referent in the field [8][9][10]. It describes a group of point particles advancing at a fixed common speed, only coupled through alignment interactions that steer each agent towards the mean heading direction of all particles within a given radius [12,13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective motion dynamics of active solids and active crystals

Ferrante

Turgut²,

Dorigo

et al. 2013

New J. Phys.

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We introduce a simple model of self-propelled particles connected by linear springs that describes a semi-rigid formation of active agents without explicit alignment rules. The model displays a discontinuous transition at a critical noise level, below which the group self-organizes into a collectively translating or rotating state. We identify a novel elasticity-based mechanism that cascades self-propulsion energy towards lower-energy modes as responsible for such collective motion and illustrate it by computing the spectral decomposition of the elastic energy. We study the model's convergence dynamics as a function of system size and derive analytical stability conditions for the translating state in a continuous elastic sheet approximation. We explore the dynamics of a ringshaped configuration and of local angular perturbations of an aligned state. We show that the elasticity-based mechanism achieves collective motion even in 7

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“…First, there is an ethological question: what are the behavioral mechanisms at work in complex collective behaviors? Some of them, such as positive and negative feedback between individuals, or indirect communication through the environment (i.e., stigmergy), are well known from examples found both in biology (Camazine et al, 2003) and theoretical physics (Deutsch et al, 2012). Second, there is a question about the origins and stability of behaviors: what are the key elements that make it possible to evolve collective behaviors, and what are their limits?…”

Section: Benchmarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Evolution in Collective Robotics: A Review

2018

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This article provides an overview of evolutionary robotics techniques applied to online distributed evolution for robot collectives, namely, embodied evolution. It provides a definition of embodied evolution as well as a thorough description of the underlying concepts and mechanisms. This article also presents a comprehensive summary of research published in the field since its inception around the year 2000, providing various perspectives to identify the major trends. In particular, we identify a shift from considering embodied evolution as a parallel search method within small robot collectives (fewer than 10 robots) to embodied evolution as an online distributed learning method for designing collective behaviors in swarm-like collectives. This article concludes with a discussion of applications and open questions, providing a milestone for past and an inspiration for future research.

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Collective motion in biological systems

Cited by 66 publications

References 32 publications

Prey in oceanic sound scattering layers organize to get a little help from their friends

Prey in oceanic sound scattering layers organize to get a little help from their friends

Collective motion dynamics of active solids and active crystals

Embodied Evolution in Collective Robotics: A Review

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