# Exploring the onset of collective motion in self-organised trails of social organisms

## TL;DR

This paper uses an agent-based model to analyze how social organisms develop collective trails, identifying the minimal group size needed for cooperative motion and how this scales with environment size.

## Contribution

It introduces a quantitative analysis of the transition from diffusive to directed motion in social organisms, highlighting the minimal colony size for collective behavior.

## Key findings

- Existence of a minimal colony size for collective trail formation
- Identification of a crossover point from diffusive to directed motion
- Scaling behavior of this transition with environment size

## Abstract

We investigate the emergence of self-organised trails between two specific target areas in collective motion of social organisms by means of an agent-based model. We present numerical evidences that an increase in the efficiency of navigation in dependence of the colony size, exists. Moreover, the shift, from the diffusive to the directed motion can be quantitatively characterised, identifying and measuring a well defined crossover point. This point corresponds to the minimal number of individuals necessary for the onset of collective cooperation. Finally, by means of a finite-size scaling analysis, we describe its scaling behavior as a function of the environment size. This last result can be of particular interest for interpreting empirical observations or for the design of artificial swarms.