Article
Biology
Marina Papadopoulou, Ines Furtbauer, Lisa R. O'Bryan, Simon Garnier, Dimitra G. Georgopoulou, Anna M. Bracken, Charlotte Christensen, Andrew J. King
Summary: Most studies on collective animal behavior have limited understanding of intra- and interspecific variation over time, hindering comprehension of ecological and evolutionary processes. This study examines collective motion in four species and describes differences in local and group patterns. Using a "swarm space," comparisons and predictions on collective motion across species are made. In addition, this study investigates intraspecific variation over time and provides guidance on confident inferences based on observations at different time scales.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Sonia Rey, Xingkun Jin, Borge Damsgard, Marie-Laure Begout, Simon Mackenzie
Summary: The study investigated the transferability of personality-specific mRNA transcripts across distantly-related fish species and the conservation of a proactive transcriptome signature across three different species. Results showed that differential mRNA transcript abundance in the brain appears to be partially conserved across species relative to personality type, suggesting functional conservation of cross-species molecular signatures related to proactive behavior.
Article
Biology
T. Gruber, M. Chimento, L. M. Aplin, D. Biro
Summary: Recent studies have shown that animal culture can become more efficient in various contexts, satisfying the criteria of cumulative cultural evolution. However, there is still no consensus on the definition of efficiency, cumulative cultural evolution, or the link between efficiency and complex forms of cumulative cultural evolution unique to humans. To address these issues, this article reviews potential evidence for cumulative cultural evolution in animals, provides a useful definition of efficiency by synthesizing perspectives from animal studies and iterated learning literature, and discusses the factors that affect the informational bottleneck of social transmission. The article concludes that framing cumulative cultural evolution in terms of efficiency sheds new light on complexity, as learnable behaviors are essential for its evolution.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Isaac Planas-Sitja, Jean-Louis Deneubourg, Denis L. J. Lafontaine, Ludivine Wacheul, Adam L. Cronin
Summary: Animal personality refers to the differences in behavior and actions among individuals, which is important for group survival in group-living animals. A study on American cockroaches found that bold individuals have upregulated genes associated with sensory activity and aggressive behavior, and social context can modulate gene expression related to bold/shy characteristics. Cockroaches could be valuable for studying genetic mechanisms underlying social behavior evolution.
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Martin Migliaro, Alejandra E. Ruiz-Contreras, Andrea Herrera-Solis, Monica Mendez-Diaz, Oscar E. Prospero-Garcia
Summary: This narrative review article summarizes the current state of knowledge regarding the relationship between the endocannabinoid system (ECS) and aggression across multiple vertebrate species. Experimental evidence indicates that acute administration of phytocannabinoids, synthetic cannabinoids, and the pharmacological enhancement of endocannabinoid signaling decreases aggressive behavior in several animal models. However, research on the chronic effects of cannabinoids on animal aggression has yielded inconsistent findings, indicating a need for further investigation. Cannabinoid receptors, particularly cannabinoid receptor type 1, appear to be an important part of the endogenous mechanism involved in the dampening of aggressive behavior.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Biology
Isabella Benter Muratore, Simon Garnier
Summary: During their lifetime, superorganisms and unitary organisms undergo transformations that change their collective behavior machinery. This review suggests that these transformations are understudied and that more research into the ontogeny of collective behaviors is needed for a better understanding of the link between behavioral mechanisms and the development of adaptive functions.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Gal Natan, Vasco M. Worlitzer, Gil Ariel, Avraham Be'er
Summary: This paper studies mixed swarms of Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and finds intricate interactions between the species, showing both cooperation and segregation. Despite their differences in characteristics, the two species can swarm together to form a mixed colony, while also achieving local segregation.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Alexander N. Gorelick, Kamila Naxerova
Summary: Long-lived species have a slower mutation rate than short-lived species, which may explain why cancer risk does not increase with lifespan.
Letter
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Alexander N. Gorelick, Kamila Naxerova
Summary: Longer-lived animals acquire mutations at a slower rate than short-lived species, potentially explaining why cancer risk does not increase with lifespan.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Toman Barsbai, Dieter Lukas, Andreas Pondorfer
Summary: Research has shown that human populations and nonhuman mammal and bird species living in the same environment exhibit high levels of similarity in their behaviors, suggesting that local conditions may select for similar behaviors.
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Dawid Slomian, Kacper Zukowski, Joanna Szyda
Summary: The study found that the pedigree structure significantly impacts the convergence rate of the optimization, with more efficiency observed for the truncated dataset compared to the full dataset. Despite differences in convergence rates, high correlations were observed between predicted breeding values in both datasets. Further analysis also revealed heterogeneity in convergence behavior among different animal groups and model effects, with SNPs converging the fastest and genetic groups converging the slowest.
GENETICS SELECTION EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Biology
Juliane Lukas, Jens Krause, Arabella Sophie Traeger, Jonas Marc Piotrowski, Pawel Romanczuk, Henning Sprekeler, Lenin Arias-Rodriguez, Stefan Krause, Christopher Schutz, David Bierbach
Summary: Collective behaviour in multi-species fish shoals can provide antipredator benefits. The presence of multiple species offers an opportunity to study the evolution of collective behaviour. This study found that mixed-species fish shoals performing collective dives can generate water waves that reduce predator attacks. The behaviour of the species in the shoal influences the overall effectiveness of wave production.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Fengtong Ji, Yilin Wu, Martin Pumera, Li Zhang
Summary: Analyzing and designing collective behaviors in microorganisms is crucial for developing and advancing microswarm towards practical or clinical applications.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Aerospace
Senthil Kumar Hariom, Akshara Ravi, Gokul Raj Mohan, Harani Devi Pochiraju, Sulagna Chattopadhyay, Everette Jacob Remington Nelson
Summary: Gravity has a profound impact on biological properties and can induce adaptive responses in physiological functions. Astronauts in microgravity environment often suffer from various physiological issues. Studies suggest that artificial gravity simulation could be a potential solution to space-incurred physiological disturbances.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Pamela M. Prentice, Chloe Mnatzaganian, Thomas M. Houslay, Alex Thornton, Alastair J. Wilson
Summary: Cognition is crucial for survival and reproduction, and it varies between species and individuals. This study on male Poecilia reticulata found differences in spatial learning ability and stress response behavior among individuals. However, the cumulative effects of experience and chronic stress may impact cognitive performance.
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Pietro De Lellis, Manuel Ruiz Marin, Maurizio Porfiri
Summary: The study suggests that there is an association between voting behavior and the incidence of COVID-19 cases in the 2020 presidential elections. In counties with fewer COVID-19 cases, the incumbent President lost more ground to his opponent Biden, contrary to the expected narrative.
EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL-SPECIAL TOPICS
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Carmela Calabrese, Benoit G. Bardy, Pietro De Lellis, Mario di Bernardo
Summary: In human groups performing oscillatory tasks, it has been observed that the frequency of participants' oscillations reduces compared to solo tasks. This phenomenon cannot be explained by the standard Kuramoto oscillators, so in this study, three alternative modifications of the model based on biologically-relevant hypotheses are proposed to capture this observed phenomenon.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Pietro De Lellis, Maurizio Porfiri
Summary: This study presents a method to infer the size of a collective from the motion of a single unit, based on the analogy with the classical kinetic theory of gases. By drawing inspiration from Einstein-Perrin-Smoluchowski's work on the structure of matter, the authors demonstrate a relationship between the diffusion coefficient of individual particles and the size of the collective.
COMMUNICATIONS PHYSICS
(2022)
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Fabio Della Rossa, Carlos J. Vega, Pietro De Lellis
Summary: We propose a constructive method to design a pinning control law for synchronizing a network of stochastic dynamical systems. The method involves adding a nonlinear feedback term to the standard proportional controller to minimize a given cost functional. The effectiveness of the proposed control law is demonstrated through theoretical guarantees, algorithm design, numerical testbeds, and Monte Carlo simulations.
Article
Mathematics, Applied
Alessandra Corso, Lucia Valentina Gambuzza, Pietro De Lellis, Mattia Frasca
Summary: In this work, a multilayer control protocol is proposed for achieving synchronization of network dynamical systems with limited resources. In addition to the backbone network where system interactions take place, a second adaptive layer is introduced with edge snapping mechanism to add or remove edges. The modified edge dynamics with capped number of activated edges are studied for local stability of the network dynamics. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach are demonstrated on a network of Rossler oscillators and a model of the Italian high-voltage power grid.
Article
Medicine, Legal
Rossana Cecchi, Vittoria Masotti, Matilde Sassani, Alessandra Sannella, Giulia Agugiaro, Tomoya Ikeda, Davide Maria Pressanto, Emanuele Caroppo, Maria Laura Schirripa, Marianna Mazza, Toshikazu Kondo, Pietro De Lellis
Summary: This paper applies a proposed definition of femicide to a cohort of cases to characterize femicides and female homicides and evaluate if femicides can be considered as a distinct entity. Comparisons between female and male homicides reveal common and distinctive features, such as a higher prevalence of indoor homicides and asphyxiation in female homicides. The study suggests that femicide and female homicide can be regarded as separate victimological phenomena.
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Pietro De Lellis, Fabio Della Rossa, Francesco Lo Iudice, Davide Liuzza
Summary: This paper proposes a control strategy based on directed hypergraphs for controlling network systems coupled through directed hypergraphs. Different from traditional control based on directed graphs, the strategy utilizes signed graphs for analyzing the control conditions and designing the control hyperedges.
IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Giovanni Polverino, Kali M. Buchholz, Celine T. Goulet, Marcus Michelangeli, David G. Chapple
Summary: Based on a study of 57 adult male delicate skinks, it has been found that individual differences in behavior are not consistent over time, but the existence of behavioral syndromes remains stable in both short and long term.
EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Francesco Lo Iudice, Franco Garofalo, Pietro De Lellis
Summary: Controlling collective behavior in network systems is a key goal for researchers. Pinning control has been commonly used for this purpose, but recently the problem of controlling only a fraction of the network nodes has been explored. This study focuses on the case where the convergence of network nodes to a pinner's trajectory is bounded due to the influence of an external opponent node. Analytic conditions for bounded convergence in a strongly connected component of the network are derived, along with an estimate of the convergence bound. Theoretical results are applied to an opinion dynamics scenario, demonstrating the effectiveness of a pinned node selection strategy in steering the majority of network nodes towards the pinner's opinion.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL OF NETWORK SYSTEMS
(2023)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Lorenzo Latini, Giuseppe Nascetti, Giacomo Grignani, Eleonora Bello, Giovanni Polverino, Daniele Canestrelli, Claudio Carere
Summary: Conservation aquaculture is important for sustainable animal supplies, but concerns are raised about the welfare of farmed animals. This study focuses on the European lobster and finds that rearing lobsters in small spaces limits their growth and compromises the development of ecologically-relevant behaviors. Improving rearing procedures can enhance the welfare of hatchery-cultured lobsters and improve the effectiveness of conservation programs.
APPLIED ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biology
Jack A. Brand, Winston K. W. Yee, Ian J. Aitkenhead, Jake M. Martin, Giovanni Polverino, Steven L. Chown, Bob B. M. Wong, Damian K. Dowling
Summary: Temperature is a crucial factor that affects organismal fitness and has significant ecological implications. The influence of temperature on behavioral variation among individuals and between sexes in ectotherms is still not well understood. This study investigates the effects of temperature on behavioral variation and metabolism in adult male and female Drosophila melanogaster. The results show that males are more responsive to temperature change in mean activity levels, but no sex differences were found in thermal metabolic plasticity. Higher temperatures increased variation in male locomotor activity, but not in females. Further research is needed to explore whether sex differences in behavioral variation in response to temperature change may lead to sex-specific vulnerabilities to a warming climate.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Camilla Ancona, Pietro De Lellis, Francesco Lo Iudice
Summary: This letter examines how opinion leaders, also known as influencers, shape the opinions and actions of groups of individuals. The authors propose a model where influencers control a subset of individuals and use the network of interactions to influence a large fraction of individuals. They provide sufficient conditions for an individual to take the same action as the influencer. Based on these conditions, they design a heuristic for selecting the pinned nodes to maximize the number of nodes adopting the influencer's chosen action. The performance of the heuristic is then tested numerically against standard pinning strategies.
IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Applications
Pietro De Lellis, Manuel Ruiz Marin, Maurizio Porfiri
Summary: Pairwise interactions are crucial for understanding the collective dynamics of various systems. Although information theory provides a valuable framework to study these interactions, traditional metrics such as time-delayed mutual information and transfer entropy have limitations in accurately capturing information flow. To address this, researchers have introduced intrinsic mutual information as a more precise measure of information flow. However, the potential of intrinsic mutual information in inferring directional influences from time-series data is not well understood. In this study, we investigate this possibility using a simple leader-follower model, and find that intrinsic mutual information tends to produce more false inferences compared to transfer entropy.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICS-COMPLEXITY
(2023)
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Camilla Ancona, Francesco Lo Iudice, Antonio Coppola, Pietro De Lellis, Franco Garofalo
Summary: We study the case of unilateral inputs exerted on a subset of network nodes and provide conditions for determining the unilateral controllability of a given node subset. We also develop a computationally efficient heuristic to select the nodes where the unilateral inputs should be injected.
IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Francesco Lo Iudice, Franco Garofalo, Pietro De Lellis
Summary: In this paper, we propose a distributed estimation and control strategy to balance a multi-agent system along a closed-curve. By addressing challenges such as limited sensing range and compatibility of measurement results, we achieve a balanced formation. Numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.
IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS LETTERS
(2022)
