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Science 2 June 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5778, pp. 1402 - 1406
DOI: 10.1126/science.1125142
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Reports

From Disorder to Order in Marching Locusts

J. Buhl,1,2* D. J. T. Sumpter,1 I. D. Couzin,1,3 J. J. Hale,1 E. Despland,1{dagger} E. R. Miller,1 S. J. Simpson1,2

Recent models from theoretical physics have predicted that mass-migrating animal groups may share group-level properties, irrespective of the type of animals in the group. One key prediction is that as the density of animals in the group increases, a rapid transition occurs from disordered movement of individuals within the group to highly aligned collective motion. Understanding such a transition is crucial to the control of mobile swarming insect pests such as the desert locust. We confirmed the prediction of a rapid transition from disordered to ordered movement and identified a critical density for the onset of coordinated marching in locust nymphs. We also demonstrated a dynamic instability in motion at densities typical of locusts in the field, in which groups can switch direction without external perturbation, potentially facilitating the rapid transfer of directional information.

1 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
2 School of Biological Sciences, Heydon-Laurence Building, A08, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544–1003, USA.

{dagger} Present address: Biology Department, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke West, Montréal, Québec H4B 1R6, Canada.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jbuhl{at}usyd.edu.au

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