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Ecological modelling: The mathematical mirror to animal nature

Nature volume 453, pages 714–716 (2008)Cite this article

Animal behaviour is an endless challenge to mathematical modellers. In this, the first of two features, Mark Buchanan looks at how a mathematical principle from physics might be able to explain patterns of movement. In the second, Arran Frood asks what current models can teach us about ecological networks half a billion years old.

Food is not, in general, spread equally around the world; it comes in lumps. Foragers thus need a strategy for finding those lumps. One appealing option is a Lévy flight — a mathematical concept used in physics. Lévy flights are many-legged journeys in which most of the legs are short, but a few are much longer. They are found in some sorts of diffusion, in fluid turbulence, even in astrophysics. In animal behaviour, the longer the flight, the farther afield a creature will get, offering a way to efficiently exploit food nearby but also to discover sources farther away.

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  1. Mark Buchanan
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See Editorial, page 698 , and News Feature, page 717 .

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British Antarctic Survey

Dave Sims

Center for Complex Network Research

Mark Buchanan

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Buchanan, M. Ecological modelling: The mathematical mirror to animal nature. Nature 453, 714–716 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453714a

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