Emergent runaway into an avoidance area in a swarm of soldier crabs

Emergent behavior that arises from a mass effect is one of the most striking aspects of collective animal groups. Investigating such behavior would be important in order to understand how individuals interact with their neighbors. Although there are many experiments that have used collective animals...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-05, Vol.9 (5), p.e97870
Main Authors: Murakami, Hisashi, Tomaru, Takenori, Nishiyama, Yuta, Moriyama, Toru, Niizato, Takayuki, Gunji, Yukio-Pegio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Animals
Behavior
Behavior, Animal - physiology
Biology and Life Sciences
Brachyura
Brachyura - physiology
Carassius auratus
Computer and Information Sciences
Crabs
Crustaceans
Experiments
Mass Behavior
Mictyridae
Mictyris guinotae
Military
Models, Biological
Noise
Population density
Rivers
Science
Social aspects
Social discrimination learning
Soldiers
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Summary:Emergent behavior that arises from a mass effect is one of the most striking aspects of collective animal groups. Investigating such behavior would be important in order to understand how individuals interact with their neighbors. Although there are many experiments that have used collective animals to investigate social learning or conflict between individuals and society such as that between a fish and a school, reports on mass effects are rare. In this study, we show that a swarm of soldier crabs could spontaneously enter a water pool, which are usually avoided, by forming densely populated part of a swarm at the edge of the water pool. Moreover, we show that the observed behavior can be explained by the model of collective behavior based on inherent noise that is individuals' different velocities in a directed group. Our results suggest that inherent noise, which is widely seen in collective animals, can contribute to formation and/or maintenance of a swarm and that the dense swarm can enter the pool by means of enhanced inherent noise.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0097870