RUI: Asymmetric Risks and Rewards: Optimization of Group Positions to Balance Ecological and Physiological Constraints

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Title: RUI: Asymmetric Risks and Rewards: Optimization of Group Positions to Balance Ecological and Physiological Constraints.P.I.: Dr. W.L. Romey, The beauty of a shifting school of fish or flock of birds moving in unison belies the underlying tension within it: differences of opportunities for food, differences of risks of being attacked, and differences in physiology among its members. Fish, birds, and other gregarious species are not as randomly distributed within their groups as previously assumed. Dr. Romey and students will develop and test a general conceptual model to predict where individuals should be in a group based on an individual's physiology and their environment. For example, if there is more food available at the front edge of a group, but also greater risk of predation, then well fed individuals "should" position themselves in the back, weighing the chance of predation higher than food acquisition. A series of laboratory experiments will be carried out in which the following factors will be systematically varied: satiation, chemical defenses, food distribution, predator distribution, and water velocity. They will use whirligig beetles (Dineutes) as a model organism for this type of loosely grouping species (congregation) because they can be easily brought into the laboratory, marked, and group in two-dimensions. Position of marked individuals under these different conditions will be analyzed by computer-video analysis. This study will help to develop a general conceptual model, and eventually a simulation model, which can help to make predictions about group dynamics of swarms, flocks, and schools. Broader implications of the proposed research include understanding: 1) how animals make decisions, 2) optimization theory, 3) game theory and stochastic dynamic modeling, and 4) understanding how individual behaviors lead to emergent group properties and distributions.