In recent years there has been a growing interest in the relationship
between individual behavior and population-level properties in animal
groups. One of the fundamental problems is related to spatial scale; how
do interactions over a local range result in population properties at
larger, averaged, scales, and how can we integrate the properties of
aggregates over these scales? Many group-living animals exhibit complex,
and coordinated, spatio-temporal patterns which despite their ubiquity
and ecological importance are very poorly understood. This is largely
due to the difficulties associated with quantifying the motion of, and
interactions among, many animals simultaneously. It is on how these
behaviors scale to collective behaviors that I will focus here. Using a
combined empirical approach (using novel computer vision techniques) and
individual-based computer models, I investigate pattern formation in
both invertebrate and vertebrate systems, including - Collective memory
and self-organized group structure in vertebrate groups (Couzin, I.D.,
Krause, J., James, R., Ruxton, G.D. & Franks, N.R. (2002) Journal of
Theoretical Biology 218, 1-11. (2) Couzin, I.D. & Krause, J. (2003)
Advances in the Study of Behavior 32, 1-75. (3) Hoare, D.J., Couzin,
I.D. Godin, J.-G. & Krause, J. (2003) Animal Behaviour, in press.) -
Self-organized lane formation and optimized traffic flow in army ants
(Couzin, I.D. & Franks, N.R. (2003) Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London, Series B 270, 139-146) - Leadership and information transfer
in flocks, schools and swarms. - Why do hoppers hop? Hopping and the
generation of long-range order in some of the largest animal groups in
nature, locust hopper bands.