Stochastic foundations of movement ecology III: Mean First Passage Times and the exploration-exploitation search tradeoff

Date

Nov 5, 2015

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Frederic Bartumeus

Affiliation

Centre d'Estudis Avancats de Blanes (CEAB-CSIC), Spain

Language

en

Main Topic

Physik

Other Topics

Physik

Host

Advanced Study Group Klages

Description

This is the third part of an introductory three-part mini lecture series, based on the reference cited below Based on a one-dimensional comparative analysis we show a mechanism by which, at random, a searcher can optimize the encounter with close and distant targets. The mechanism consists of combining an optimal diffusivity (optimally enhanced diffusion) with a minimal diffusion constant. In such a way the search dynamics adequately balances the tension between finding close and distant targets, while, at the same time, shifts the optimal balance towards relatively larger close-to-distant target encounter ratios. We find that introducing a hierarchical multiscale set of reorientations ensures both a thorough local space exploration without oversampling and a fast spreading dynamics at the large scale. More recent works show that, if partial knowledge exists about target relative distances the best alternative (in terms of search efficiency) to a random search is an informed combination of only two walk scales (related to the exploitative and explorative scales, respectively). Ref.: Vicenc Mendez, Daniel Campos, Frederic Bartumeus, Stochastic foundations of movement ecology (Springer, Berlin, 2013)

Last modified: Nov 5, 2015, 9:00:26 AM