Related papers: Complex fluids in the animal kingdom
Complex systems often have features that can be modeled by advanced mathematical tools [1]. Of special interests are the features of complex systems that have a network structure as such systems are important for modeling technological and…
In ecology, species can mitigate their extinction risks in uncertain environments by diversifying individual phenotypes. This observation is quantified by the theory of bet-hedging, which provides a reason for the degree of phenotypic…
We study the probabilities of evolution based on random mutations and natural selection. We conclude that evolution to multicellular eukaryots, or even prokaryots, is unlikely to be the result of only random mutations. Complex organisms…
Due to the conventional distinction between ecological (rapid) and evolutionary (slow)timescales, ecological and population models to date have typically ignored the effects of evolution. Yet the potential for rapid evolutionary change has…
Plankton constitutes the productive base of aquatic ecosystems and plays an essential role in the global carbon cycle. The impact of hydrodynamic conditions on the biological activity of plankton species can manifest in a variety of…
When wet soil becomes fully saturated by intense rainfall, or is shaken by an earthquake, it may fluidize catastrophically. Sand-rich slurries are treated as granular suspensions, where the failure is related to an unjamming transition. Mud…
Turbulence has been recognized as a factor of paramount importance for the survival or extinction of sinking phytoplankton species. However, dealing with its multiscale nature in models of coupled fluid and biological dynamics is a…
Ecological systems comprise an astonishing diversity of species that cooperate or compete with each other forming complex mutual dependencies. The minimum requirements to maintain a large species diversity on long time scales are in general…
Nowadays, the exponentially growing of the Web renders the problem of correlation among different topics of paramount importance. The proposed model can be used to study the evolution of network depicted by different topics on the web…
Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small…
Animal vision is thought to optimize various objectives from metabolic efficiency to discrimination performance, yet its ultimate objective is to facilitate the survival of the animal within its ecological niche. However, modeling animal…
The distributions of species lifetimes and species in space are related, since species with good local survival chances have more time to colonize new habitats and species inhabiting large areas have higher chances to survive local…
Animal grouping behaviors have been widely studied due to their implications for understanding social intelligence, collective cognition, and potential applications in engineering, artificial intelligence, and robotics. An important…
The assembly of ecological communities from a pool of species is central to ecology, but the effect of this process on properties of community interaction networks is still largely unknown. Here, we use a systematic analytical framework to…
Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…
Movement is a fundamental behaviour of organisms that brings about beneficial encounters with resources and mates, but at the same time exposes the organism to dangerous encounters with predators. The movement patterns adopted by organisms…
Semi-flexible polymers in crowded environments exhibit complex dynamics that play a crucial role in various biological and material design processes. Based on the classic reptation theory, it is generally believed that semiflexible polymers…
Swimming organisms can escape their predators by creating and harnessing unsteady flow fields through their body motions. Stochastic optimization and flow simulations have identified escape patterns that are consistent with those observed…
Collective behaviour in living systems is observed across many scales, from bacteria to insects, to fish shoals. Zebrafish have emerged as a model system amenable to laboratory study. Here we report a three-dimensional study of the…
Many species of microbes cooperate by producing public goods from which they collectively benefit. However, these populations are under the risk of being taken over by cheating mutants that do not contribute to the pool of public goods.…