Research News: Science Paper on The Physics of Locust Swarms
David Sumpter and Iain Couzin, two members of CABDyN who are based in the Zoology Department, are the co-authors
of an article in Science on order-disorder transitions in the collective motion of locust swarms
(see Buhl, J., Sumpter, D.J.T., Couzin, I.D., Hale, J., Despland, E., Miller, E. & Simpson, S.J. (2006)
"From disorder to order in marching locusts", Science 312, 1402-1406).
Locust swarms can invade large areas of Earth’s land surface and are estimated
to affect the livelihood of one in ten people on the planet. The key to effective management
of locust out-breaks is early detection of the marching juveniles (bands), because control of
flying swarms is costly and ineffective. Buhl et al., (2006) reveal that there is a critical
density at which locusts will begin collective motion. The onset of this behaviour is characterized
by a sudden switch from disordered movement of individuals in the group to highly aligned collective motion.
The nonlinearity of this transition means that small increases in density can result in abrupt changes in
collective motion. The results match predictions from models of
phase transitions from disorder to order in statistical physics. These models can permit scaling
from laboratory experiments to large populations in the field and hence inform plans for controlling
locust outbreaks.
For the article see
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/312/5778/1402.pdf
[Download requires a personal or institutional subscription to Science].
For the University Press Announcement see
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/po/news/2005-06/jun/20.shtml.