Study of animal movement and group formation with a Lagrangian model

• Author / Creator

  Wong, Rita

• Animal group formation has often been studied by mathematical biologists through PDE models, producing
  classical results like traveling and stationary waves. Recently, Eftimie et al. introduced a 1-D PDE model
  that considers three social interactions between individuals in the relevant neighborhoods, specifically re-
  pulsion, alignment, and attraction. It takes into account the orientation of the neighbors when consider-
  ing if they can communicate. This has resulted in exciting new movement behaviors like zig-zag pulses,
  breathers, and feathers. In this work, we translate the Eftimie model into a Lagrangian implementation.
  Currently, the results from the Lagrangian formulations show many of the results displayed by Eftimie’s
  original PDE model, producing patterns like the zig-zag, breather traveling, and stationary pulses. In addi-
  tion, we model animal movement with an ODE approach to complete the investigation regarding the role of
  direction-dependent communication mechanism in discrete-space.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Animal movement
  • Lagrangian modeling

• Graduation date

  Spring 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R35886

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.