On the emergence of gravitational-like forces in insect swarms.

ABSTRACT: Okubo (Okubo 1986 Adv. Biophys. 22, 1-94. (doi:10.1016/0065-227X(86)90003-1)) was the first to propose that insect swarms are analogous to self-gravitating systems. In the intervening years, striking similarities between insect swarms and self-gravitating systems have been uncovered. Nonetheless, experimental observations of laboratory swarms provide no conclusive evidence of long-range forces acting between swarming insects. The insects appear somewhat paradoxically to be tightly bound to the swarm while at the same time weakly coupled inside it. Here, I show how resultant centrally attractive gravitational-like forces can emerge from the observed tendency of insects to continually switch between two distinct flight modes: one that consists of low-frequency manoeuvres and on

SUBMITTER: Reynolds AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6893498 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature