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

PLoS One. 2014 May 19;9(5):e97870. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097870. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Behavior, Animal / physiology*
  • Brachyura / physiology*
  • Mass Behavior*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Noise*
  • Rivers

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Kobe University funding and JSPS24320008 (organized by Hiroyuki Miyoshi). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.