The dynamics of multi-agent systems in space and time: comparing idealized with real animals

Dan Rubenstein

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1003, USA

Characterizing how real animals move on actual landscapes requires both a functional and mechanistic understanding of decision-making in space and time. This requires melding information about why particular decision rules become part of an animal's repertoire over evolutionary time and how such rules produce particular patterns of behavior in ecological time. This talk will explore how models of particles once given evolutionary and ecological personalities can produce realistic patterns of aggregation and movement of creatures ranging from fish and zebras.