Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 63: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems II (joint session BP/DY)
DY 63.2: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2018, 15:15–15:30, H 2013
Intermittent collective behavior in small groups of gregarious animals — •Luis A. Gómez1, Richard Bon2, and Fernando Peruani1 — 1Laboratoire J. A. Dieudonné, Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France — 2Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
Collective behavior of small groups of gregarious animals is our subject of interest. Experiments with small groups of merino sheep showed interesting features like periodicity of moving and resting phases, synchronization of these phases at the individual level, collective stick–slip dynamics and cohesivity of the group around the center of mass. We show some experimental evidence obtained from the tracking of individual sheep that suggests that the no motion phase of the individuals is qualitatively different to the motion phase. In particular, we discover that a refractory period can be associated to the no motion phase. We propose the introduction of a 3-state model in order to describe the experimental observations for several group sizes (2, 3, 4 and 8 individuals) and study the temporal evolution. Although the model is proposed at the individual level, repercussions at the collective level emerge.