Collective motion as a distinct behavioral state of the individual

Abstract

Summary The collective motion of swarms depends on adaptations at the individual level. We explored these and their effects on swarm formation and maintenance in locusts. The walking kinematics of individual insects were monitored under laboratory settings, before, as well as during collective motion in a group, and again after separation from the group. It was found that taking part in collective motion induced in the individual unique behavioral kinematics, suggesting the existence of a distinct behavioral mode that we term a “collective-motion-state.” This state, characterized by behavioral adaptation to the social context, is long lasting, not induced by crowding per se, but only by experiencing collective motion. Utilizing computational models, we show that this adaptability increases the robustness of the swarm. Overall, our findings suggest that collective motion is not only an emergent property of the group but also depends on a behavioral mode, rooted in endogenous mechanisms of the individual.

Visual processing and collective motion-related decision-making in desert locusts

“…More attention dedicated to larger dots, although less abundant, indicates that immediate neighbors may influence the decision of an individual more strongly than more distant members of the swarm. This is also consistent with previous reports suggesting a limited functional radius of attention around an individual in a group [13];[14].…”

“…Importantly, our findings indicate that the locusts perceive a complete absence of motion cues (i.e., still dots) differently to that of an absence of conclusive information in the motion cues (i.e., non-coherently moving dots). This could be reflected in gregarious locusts continuing to walk even when alone (albeit with altered kinematics [14], but tending to pause and wait when surrounded by conspecifics moving randomly, (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved.…”

A Locust-Inspired Model of Collective Marching on Rings

“…The locust experiments inspiring our work are discussed in [ 3 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 18 , 19 ]. The phenomenon was originally studied by Buhl et al [ 18 ].…”

“…Our goal is to study this question from an algorithmic perspective by considering a swarm of autonomous and identical discretized mobile agents that act according to a local algorithm. The precise mechanisms underlying locusts’ behaviors are very complex and subject to intense ongoing research, e.g., [ 3 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Consequently, as with much of the literature on swarm dynamics [ 7 , 16 , 17 ], our goal is not to study an exact mathematical model of locusts in particular, but to study the kinds of algorithmic local interactions that lead to collective marching and related phenomena.…”

Anisotropic Interaction and Motion States of Locusts in a Hopper Band

“…Other arena studies examine the effect of cannibalism [12,8,9,31] and the presence of food [20]. A recent arena study [39] found that marching with just nine other locusts triggered motion qualitatively different from isolated marchers. Individual-level quantitative information from within a hopper band in a natural setting is restricted to just a single set of data analyzed by Buhl et al [14,13].…”