Collective motion while foraging in nutritionally-imbalanced environments

The project Collective motion while foraging in nutritionally-imbalanced environments aims to identify patterns of collective behaviour in locusts that emerge in nutritionally-imbalanced environments. Since nutritional deprivation drives collective motion of locusts and since the animals strive to maintain specific ratios of carbohydrates and proteins in their dietary intake, the research team led by Vishwanath Varma predicts that environments with greater variation in nutritional content would facilitate synchronization of movements and feeding patterns of locusts.

To this end, they presented two food patches with a balanced or imbalanced composition of proteins and carbohydrates to groups of 30 locusts in 1.2 x 1.2 m arenas and recorded and tracked their feeding behaviour and activity. The most important progress so far has been assembling the experimental setup and the construction of an agent-based model for making predictions. Varma says: “We noted a strong preference for carbohydrate-rich food in locusts and observed intake ratios comparable with known intake patterns.” Trials with alternative food patches are ongoing, and the team hopes to identify one that is sufficiently attractive for conducting further experiments but can also be precisely controlled in terms of nutritional value. Attempts are also underway to improve the accuracy of tracking individual locusts.