A Physics-Inspired Mechanistic Model of Migratory Movement Patterns in Birds.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we introduce a mechanistic model of migratory movement patterns in birds, inspired by ideas and methods from physics. Previous studies have shed light on the factors influencing bird migration but have mainly relied on statistical correlative analysis of tracking data. Our novel method offers a bottom up explanation of population-level migratory movement patterns. It differs from previous mechanistic models of animal migration and enables predictions of pathways and destinations from a given starting location. We define an environmental potential landscape from environmental data and simulate bird movement within this landscape based on simple decision rules drawn from statistical mechanics. We explore the capacity of the model by qualitatively comparing simulation results t

SUBMITTER: Revell C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5574917 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature