Dataset Information

Scale-free movement patterns in termites emerge from social interactions and preferential attachments.

ABSTRACT: As the number or density of interacting individuals in a social group increases, a transition can develop from uncorrelated and disordered behavior of the individuals to a collective coherent pattern. We expand this observation by exploring the fine details of termite movement patterns to demonstrate that the value of the scaling exponent μ of a power law describing the Lévy walk of an individual is modified collectively as the density of animals in the group changes. This effect is absent when termites interact with inert obstacles. We also show that the network of encounters and interactions among specific individuals is selective, resembling a preferential attachment mechanism that is important for social networking. Our data strongly suggest that preferential attachments, a phenomenon not reported previously, and favorite interactions with a limited number of acquaintances are responsible for the generation of Lévy movement patterns in these social insects.

SUBMITTER: Paiva LR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8157965 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Scale-free movement patterns in termites emerge from social interactions and preferential attachments.

Paiva Leticia R LR Marins Alessandra A Cristaldo Paulo F PF Ribeiro Danilo Miranda DM Alves Sidiney G SG Reynolds Andy M AM DeSouza Og O Miramontes Octavio O

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20210501 20

As the number or density of interacting individuals in a social group increases, a transition can develop from uncorrelated and disordered behavior of the individuals to a collective coherent pattern. We expand this observation by exploring the fine details of termite movement patterns to demonstrate that the value of the scaling exponent μ of a power law describing the Lévy walk of an individual is modified collectively as the density of animals in the group changes. This effect is absent when ...[more]

PMID: 33972415

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Project description:BackgroundAnimal movement is a behavioral trait shaped by the need to find food and suitable habitat, avoid predators, and reproduce. Using high-resolution tracking data, it is possible to describe movement in greater detail than ever before, which has led to many discoveries about the behavioral strategies of particular species. Recently, enough data been become available to enable a comparative approach, which has the potential to uncover general causes and consequences of variation in movement patterns, but which must be scale specific.MethodsHere we introduce a new multi-scale movement syndrome (MSMS) framework for describing and comparing animal movements and use it to explore the behavior of four sympatric mammals. MSMS incorporates four hierarchical scales of animal movement: (1) fine-scale movement steps which accumulate into (2) daily paths which then, over weeks or months, form a (3) life-history phase. Finally, (4) the lifetime track of an individual consists of multiple life-history phases connected by dispersal or migration events. We suggest a series of metrics to describe patterns of movement at each of these scales and use the first three scales of this framework to compare the movement of 46 animals from four frugivorous mammal species.ResultsWhile subtle differences exist between the four species in their step-level movements, they cluster into three distinct movement syndromes in both path- and life-history phase level analyses. Differences in feeding ecology were a better predictor of movement patterns than a species' locomotory or sensory adaptations.ConclusionsGiven the role these species play as seed dispersers, these movement syndromes could have important ecosystem implications by affecting the pattern of seed deposition. This multiscale approach provides a hierarchical framework for comparing animal movement for addressing ecological and evolutionary questions. It parallels scales of analyses for resource selection functions, offering the potential to connect movement process with emergent patterns of space use.

Dataset Information

Scale-free movement patterns in termites emerge from social interactions and preferential attachments.

Publications

Scale-free movement patterns in termites emerge from social interactions and preferential attachments.

Similar Datasets

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