Related papers: Optimally Frugal Foraging
We propose a minimal model of predator-swarm interactions which captures many of the essential dynamics observed in nature. Different outcomes are observed depending on the predator strength. For a "weak" predator, the swarm is able to…
We identify a fundamental phenomenon of heterogeneous one dimensional random walks: the escape (traversal) time is maximized when the heterogeneity in transition probabilities forms a pyramid-like potential barrier. This barrier corresponds…
Throughout history, for reasons of health, well known personalities have opted not to eat to satiety - to under-eat - with known benefits. Here, for the benefits of under-eating a very simple explanation is offered and discussed in some…
We develop a set of equations to describe the population dynamics of many interacting species in food webs. Predator-prey interactions are non-linear, and are based on ratio-dependent functional responses. The equations account for…
We consider a model of nomadic agents exploring and competing for time-varying location-specific resources, arising in crowdsourced transportation services, online communities, and in traditional location based economic activity. This model…
Human travelling behaviours are markedly regular, to a large extent, predictable, and mostly driven by biological necessities (\eg sleeping, eating) and social constructs (\eg school schedules, synchronisation of labour). Not surprisingly,…
We consider a one-dimensional simple random walk surviving among a field of static soft traps : each time it meets a trap the walk is killed with probability 1--e --$\beta$ , where $\beta$ is a positive and fixed parameter. The positions of…
The quest on how to collectively self-organize in order to maximize the survival chances of the members of a social group requires finding an optimal compromise between maximizing the well-being of an individual and that of the group. Here…
Microbial populations exhibit a broad spectrum of nutrient utilization strategies, ranging from strategies utilizing diverse nutrients, called "generalists," to those being highly adapted to specific nutrients, called "specialists." The…
Finding a target in a complex environment is a fundamental challenge in nature, from chemical reactions to sperm reaching an egg. An effective strategy to reduce the time needed to reach a target is to deploy many searchers, increasing the…
In evolution theory the concept of a fitness landscape has played an important role, evolution itself being portrayed as a hill-climbing process on a rugged landscape. In this article it is shown that in general, in the presence of other…
In this paper, we study a spatial model for dormancy in a random environment via a two-type branching random walk in continuous-time, where individuals switch between dormant and active states depending on the current state of a fluctuating…
Abrupt changes in behavior can often be associated with changes in underlying behavioral states. When placed off food, the foraging behavior of C. elegans can be described as a change between an initial local-search behavior characterized…
We provide investment advice for an individual who wishes to minimize her lifetime poverty, with a penalty for bankruptcy or ruin. We measure poverty via a non-negative, non-increasing function of (running) wealth. Thus, the lower wealth…
We consider an exactly solvable model of branching random walk with random selection, which describes the evolution of a population with $N$ individuals on the real line. At each time step, every individual reproduces independently, and its…
We assume that an individual invests in a financial market with one riskless and one risky asset, with the latter's price following geometric Brownian motion as in the Black-Scholes model. Under a constant rate of consumption, we find the…
In this paper, the selective predator harvesting is considered in a predator prey system. The logistic growth of prey and ratio-dependent functional response is assumed. The dynamically varying effort is employed for selective harvesting of…
Scaling mobility patterns have been widely observed for animals. In this paper, we propose a deterministic walk model to understand the scaling mobility patterns, where walkers take the least-action walks on a lattice landscape and prey.…
In legged locomotion, the relationship between different gait behaviors and energy consumption must consider the full-body dynamics and the robot control as a whole, which cannot be captured by simple models. This work studies the robot…
A network of agents cooperate on a given area. Time evolution of their power is described within a set of nonlinear equations. The limitation of resources is introduced via the Verhulst term, equivalent to a global coupling. Each agent is…