Quantifying interaction in moving animals

对于疾病如何在动物种群中传播，或者种群如何依赖于个体之间信息传递的效率发挥作用，我们的理解有限。为了解决这一差距，将发展一种关于信息传递动力学的理论，或简单地说，传递理论。通过计算动物的运动和交换信息的传播特征，就有可能预测信息是如何在种群中传播的，是有害的，比如感染，还是有用的，比如关于食物资源的知识。为此，将构建成对动物信息传递的零模型，并将其用于解释实验室环境中的蚂蚁运动数据以及野外蝙蝠和斑马的运动数据。在蚂蚁的情况下，传播理论将被用来解释个体蚂蚁之间的相互作用频率如何调节巢中的循环活动。在蝙蝠的案例中，它将被用来测试巢穴是否作为信息传递给其他个体的中心位置。在斑马的案例中，传播理论将服务于预测人群中炭疽感染的空间传播的目的。

We have limited understanding of how a disease might spread in an animal population or how a population functions depending on the efficiency of information transmission between individuals. To address this gap a theory on the dynamics of information transmission, or transmission theory in brief, will be developed. By accounting for the movement of the animals and the transmission characteristics of the information being exchange, it is possible to predict how the information propagates through the population, being something harmful like an infection, or useful like knowledge about food resources. To do that a null model of information transmission for pairs of animals will be constructed and used to interpret ant movement data in a laboratory environment as well as bat and zebra movement data in the wild. In the ant case, transmission theory will be employed to explain how the frequency of interaction between individual ants regulate cyclic activity in the nest. In the bat case, it will be used to test whether roosts act as central location where information is transmitted to other individuals. In the zebra case, transmission theory will serve the purpose of predicting the spatial spread of anthrax infection in the population.