Functional advantages of Lévy walks emerging near a critical point
Masato Abe
Abstract
Significance Lévy walks are common biological movements. However, the functional advantages of Lévy walks emerging near a critical point are poorly understood. We modeled Lévy walks based on nonlinear dynamical systems that were the determinants of locomotion. We showed that there could be functional advantages associated with Lévy walks emerging near a critical point, including a large dynamic range to stimuli and highly flexible switching between exploitation and exploration. Moreover, we empirically confirmed these functional advantages by analyzing movement trajectories of freely moving Drosophila larvae. These findings suggested that commonly observed Lévy walks emerge near a critical point and can be explained based on these functional advantages.