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Analysis of self-overlap reveals trade-offs in plankton swimming trajectories.

Bianco, Giuseppe LU orcid ; Mariani, Patrizio ; Visser, Andre W ; Mazzocchi, Maria Grazia and Pigolotti, Simone (2014) In Journal of the Royal Society Interface 11(96).
Abstract
Movement is a fundamental behaviour of organisms that not only brings about beneficial encounters with resources and mates, but also at the same time exposes the organism to dangerous encounters with predators. The movement patterns adopted by organisms should reflect a balance between these contrasting processes. This trade-off can be hypothesized as being evident in the behaviour of plankton, which inhabit a dilute three-dimensional environment with few refuges or orienting landmarks. We present an analysis of the swimming path geometries based on a volumetric Monte Carlo sampling approach, which is particularly adept at revealing such trade-offs by measuring the self-overlap of the trajectories. Application of this method to... (More)
Movement is a fundamental behaviour of organisms that not only brings about beneficial encounters with resources and mates, but also at the same time exposes the organism to dangerous encounters with predators. The movement patterns adopted by organisms should reflect a balance between these contrasting processes. This trade-off can be hypothesized as being evident in the behaviour of plankton, which inhabit a dilute three-dimensional environment with few refuges or orienting landmarks. We present an analysis of the swimming path geometries based on a volumetric Monte Carlo sampling approach, which is particularly adept at revealing such trade-offs by measuring the self-overlap of the trajectories. Application of this method to experimentally measured trajectories reveals that swimming patterns in copepods are shaped to efficiently explore volumes at small scales, while achieving a large overlap at larger scales. Regularities in the observed trajectories make the transition between these two regimes always sharper than in randomized trajectories or as predicted by random walk theory. Thus, real trajectories present a stronger separation between exploration for food and exposure to predators. The specific scale and features of this transition depend on species, gender and local environmental conditions, pointing at adaptation to state and stage-dependent evolutionary trade-offs. (Less)
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author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of the Royal Society Interface
volume
11
issue
96
article number
20140164
publisher
The Royal Society of Canada
external identifiers
  • pmid:24789560
  • wos:000336159200010
  • scopus:84901443694
  • pmid:24789560
ISSN
1742-5662
DOI
10.1098/rsif.2014.0164
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ae8ee805-f9c2-4d26-81f5-e6ff1d35cc07 (old id 4455957)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 09:56:10
date last changed
2022-03-12 00:30:44
@article{ae8ee805-f9c2-4d26-81f5-e6ff1d35cc07,
  abstract     = {{Movement is a fundamental behaviour of organisms that not only brings about beneficial encounters with resources and mates, but also at the same time exposes the organism to dangerous encounters with predators. The movement patterns adopted by organisms should reflect a balance between these contrasting processes. This trade-off can be hypothesized as being evident in the behaviour of plankton, which inhabit a dilute three-dimensional environment with few refuges or orienting landmarks. We present an analysis of the swimming path geometries based on a volumetric Monte Carlo sampling approach, which is particularly adept at revealing such trade-offs by measuring the self-overlap of the trajectories. Application of this method to experimentally measured trajectories reveals that swimming patterns in copepods are shaped to efficiently explore volumes at small scales, while achieving a large overlap at larger scales. Regularities in the observed trajectories make the transition between these two regimes always sharper than in randomized trajectories or as predicted by random walk theory. Thus, real trajectories present a stronger separation between exploration for food and exposure to predators. The specific scale and features of this transition depend on species, gender and local environmental conditions, pointing at adaptation to state and stage-dependent evolutionary trade-offs.}},
  author       = {{Bianco, Giuseppe and Mariani, Patrizio and Visser, Andre W and Mazzocchi, Maria Grazia and Pigolotti, Simone}},
  issn         = {{1742-5662}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{96}},
  publisher    = {{The Royal Society of Canada}},
  series       = {{Journal of the Royal Society Interface}},
  title        = {{Analysis of self-overlap reveals trade-offs in plankton swimming trajectories.}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.0164}},
  doi          = {{10.1098/rsif.2014.0164}},
  volume       = {{11}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}