Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.

Movement patterns resembling Lévy walks, often attributed to the execution of an advantageous probabilistic searching strategy, are found in a wide variety of organisms, from cells to human hunter-gatherers. It has been suggested that such movement patterns may be fundamental to how humans interact...

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Main Authors: Andy Reynolds, Eliane Ceccon, Cristina Baldauf, Tassia Karina Medeiros, Octavio Miramontes
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199099&type=printable
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author Andy Reynolds
Eliane Ceccon
Cristina Baldauf
Tassia Karina Medeiros
Octavio Miramontes
author_facet Andy Reynolds
Eliane Ceccon
Cristina Baldauf
Tassia Karina Medeiros
Octavio Miramontes
author_sort Andy Reynolds
collection DOAJ
description Movement patterns resembling Lévy walks, often attributed to the execution of an advantageous probabilistic searching strategy, are found in a wide variety of organisms, from cells to human hunter-gatherers. It has been suggested that such movement patterns may be fundamental to how humans interact and experience the world and that they may have arisen early in our genus with the evolution of a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Here we show that Lévy walks are evident in the Me'Phaa of Mexico, in Brazilian Cariri farmers and in Amazonian farmers when gathering firewood, wild fruit and nuts. Around 50% of the search patterns resemble Lévy walks and these are characterized by Lévy exponents close to 1.7. The other search patterns more closely resemble bi-phasic walks. We suggest potential generative mechanisms for the occurrence of these ubiquitous Lévy walks which can be used to guide future studies on human mobility. We show that frequent excursions and meanderings from pre-existing trails can account for our observations.
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issn 1932-6203
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publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
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spelling doaj-art-5cf078cefdc845fca5d05fa739ce4b322025-08-20T03:13:19ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032018-01-01136e019909910.1371/journal.pone.0199099Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.Andy ReynoldsEliane CecconCristina BaldaufTassia Karina MedeirosOctavio MiramontesMovement patterns resembling Lévy walks, often attributed to the execution of an advantageous probabilistic searching strategy, are found in a wide variety of organisms, from cells to human hunter-gatherers. It has been suggested that such movement patterns may be fundamental to how humans interact and experience the world and that they may have arisen early in our genus with the evolution of a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Here we show that Lévy walks are evident in the Me'Phaa of Mexico, in Brazilian Cariri farmers and in Amazonian farmers when gathering firewood, wild fruit and nuts. Around 50% of the search patterns resemble Lévy walks and these are characterized by Lévy exponents close to 1.7. The other search patterns more closely resemble bi-phasic walks. We suggest potential generative mechanisms for the occurrence of these ubiquitous Lévy walks which can be used to guide future studies on human mobility. We show that frequent excursions and meanderings from pre-existing trails can account for our observations.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199099&type=printable
spellingShingle Andy Reynolds
Eliane Ceccon
Cristina Baldauf
Tassia Karina Medeiros
Octavio Miramontes
Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.
PLoS ONE
title Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.
title_full Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.
title_fullStr Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.
title_full_unstemmed Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.
title_short Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans.
title_sort levy foraging patterns of rural humans
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0199099&type=printable
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