| Title |
Are midge swarms bound together by an effective velocity-dependent gravity?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
The European Physical Journal E, April 2017
|
| DOI | 10.1140/epje/i2017-11531-7 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Andrew M. Reynolds, Michael Sinhuber, Nicholas T. Ouellette |
| Abstract |
Midge swarms are a canonical example of collective animal behaviour where local interactions do not clearly play a major role and yet the animals display group-level cohesion. The midges appear somewhat paradoxically to be tightly bound to the swarm whilst at the same time weakly coupled inside it. The microscopic origins of this behaviour have remained elusive. Models based on Newtonian gravity do, however, agree well with experimental observations of laboratory swarms. They are biologically plausible since gravitational interactions have similitude with long-range acoustic and visual interactions, and they correctly predict that individual attraction to the swarm centre increases linearly with distance from the swarm centre. Here we show that the observed kinematics implies that this attraction also increases with an individual's flight speed. We find clear evidence for such an attractive force in experimental data. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| China | 1 | 33% |
| Unknown | 2 | 67% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Scientists | 2 | 67% |
| Members of the public | 1 | 33% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 17 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 17 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 6 | 35% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 3 | 18% |
| Professor | 3 | 18% |
| Lecturer | 1 | 6% |
| Researcher | 1 | 6% |
| Other | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 2 | 12% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Physics and Astronomy | 8 | 47% |
| Engineering | 2 | 12% |
| Psychology | 1 | 6% |
| Neuroscience | 1 | 6% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 1 | 6% |
| Other | 0 | 0% |
| Unknown | 4 | 24% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 54. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 July 2019.
All research outputs
#693,889
of 23,498,099 outputs
Outputs from The European Physical Journal E
#18
of 650 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#15,557
of 310,053 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The European Physical Journal E
#2
of 15 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,498,099 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 650 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 15 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.