Animals tend to wander about randomly when searching for food: Study

A new study has discovered that animals searching for food do not stick to a complicated pattern of movement as previously thought, but tend to wander about randomly.

It was previously believed that when searching for food, animals move in very peculiar way called a Levy flight where they move small distances most of the time, but occasionally move a very long distance.

This idea was based on studies in which many animals, like albatrosses or sharks, were tracked.

However, scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Leicester have been analysing video records of aphids, small sap-sucking insects to find out how they move and have discovered that they wander about randomly, much like inanimate molecules move, and some tend to walk much more than others.

"It was the large variation between individuals with some moving very little and some moving a lot that previously created the impression of the Levy flight," said Alla Mashanova, from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway.

The researchers recorded the length of movement by all the aphids and used this data to build two mathematical models to carry out a more detailed statistical analysis.

"Understanding individual variation is crucial for interpreting the collective movement patterns of animals. This research will open the way to better understand animal search and behaviour and work out how it has evolved," said Professor Vincent Jansen from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.