Emergent dynamical phases and collective motion in termites

TL;DR

This study investigates the collective behaviors of termites, identifying and quantifying emergent phases such as disorder, clustering, and milling, and explores how self-organized interactions lead to these patterns in active matter systems.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of termite collective motion patterns and proposes that these phases arise from self-organized interactions and collision-induced phase separations.

Findings

Identified and characterized disorder, clustering, and milling patterns.

Demonstrated phase transitions among these patterns.

Linked patterns to self-organized interactions and collision dynamics.

Abstract

Termites which are able to forage in the open can be often seen, in the field or in the lab: (i) wandering around, forming no observable pattern, or (ii) clustering themselves in a dense and almost immobile pack, or (iii) milling about in a circular movement. Despite been well reported patterns, they are normally regarded as independent phenomena whose specific traits have never been properly quantified. Evidence, however, favours the hypothesis that these are interdependent patterns, arisen from self-organised interactions and movement among workers. After all, termites are a form of active matter where blind cooperative individuals are self-propelled and lack the possibility of visual cues to spatially orientate and align. It follows that their non-trivial close-contact patterns could generate motion-collision induced phase separations. This would then trigger the emergence of these three patterns (disorder, clustering, milling) as parts of the same continuum. By inspecting termite groups confined in arenas, we could quantitatively describe each one of these patterns in detail. We identified disorder, clustering and milling spatial patterns. These phases and their transitions are characterised aiming to offer refinements in the understanding of these aspects of self-propelled particles in active matter where close-range contacts and collisions are important.