Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation.
Locusts are short horned grasshoppers that exhibit two behaviour types depending on their local population density. These are: solitarious, where they will actively avoid other locusts, and gregarious where they will seek them out. It is in this gregarious state that locusts can form massive and des...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2021-07-01
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| Series: | PLoS Computational Biology |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008353&type=printable |
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| author | Fillipe Georgiou Camille Buhl J E F Green Bishnu Lamichhane Ngamta Thamwattana |
| author_facet | Fillipe Georgiou Camille Buhl J E F Green Bishnu Lamichhane Ngamta Thamwattana |
| author_sort | Fillipe Georgiou |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Locusts are short horned grasshoppers that exhibit two behaviour types depending on their local population density. These are: solitarious, where they will actively avoid other locusts, and gregarious where they will seek them out. It is in this gregarious state that locusts can form massive and destructive flying swarms or plagues. However, these swarms are usually preceded by the aggregation of juvenile wingless locust nymphs. In this paper we attempt to understand how the distribution of food resources affect the group formation process. We do this by introducing a multi-population partial differential equation model that includes non-local locust interactions, local locust and food interactions, and gregarisation. Our results suggest that, food acts to increase the maximum density of locust groups, lowers the percentage of the population that needs to be gregarious for group formation, and decreases both the required density of locusts and time for group formation around an optimal food width. Finally, by looking at foraging efficiency within the numerical experiments we find that there exists a foraging advantage to being gregarious. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c8a904d1cfb349e8aba635849f14624a |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 1553-734X 1553-7358 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-07-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Computational Biology |
| spelling | doaj-art-c8a904d1cfb349e8aba635849f14624a2025-08-20T02:01:04ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582021-07-01177e100835310.1371/journal.pcbi.1008353Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation.Fillipe GeorgiouCamille BuhlJ E F GreenBishnu LamichhaneNgamta ThamwattanaLocusts are short horned grasshoppers that exhibit two behaviour types depending on their local population density. These are: solitarious, where they will actively avoid other locusts, and gregarious where they will seek them out. It is in this gregarious state that locusts can form massive and destructive flying swarms or plagues. However, these swarms are usually preceded by the aggregation of juvenile wingless locust nymphs. In this paper we attempt to understand how the distribution of food resources affect the group formation process. We do this by introducing a multi-population partial differential equation model that includes non-local locust interactions, local locust and food interactions, and gregarisation. Our results suggest that, food acts to increase the maximum density of locust groups, lowers the percentage of the population that needs to be gregarious for group formation, and decreases both the required density of locusts and time for group formation around an optimal food width. Finally, by looking at foraging efficiency within the numerical experiments we find that there exists a foraging advantage to being gregarious.https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008353&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Fillipe Georgiou Camille Buhl J E F Green Bishnu Lamichhane Ngamta Thamwattana Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation. PLoS Computational Biology |
| title | Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation. |
| title_full | Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation. |
| title_fullStr | Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation. |
| title_short | Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation. |
| title_sort | modelling locust foraging how and why food affects group formation |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008353&type=printable |
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