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Lévy flight search patterns of wandering albatrosses

LéVY flights are a special class of random walks whose step lengths are not constant but rather are chosen from a probability distribution with a power-law tail. Realizations of Lévy flights in physical phenomena are very diverse, examples including fluid dynamics, dynamical systems, and micelles 1,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1996-05, Vol.381 (6581), p.413-415
Main Authors: Viswanathan, G. M, Afanasyev, V, Buldyrev, S. V, Murphy, E. J, Prince, P. A, Stanley, H. E
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:LéVY flights are a special class of random walks whose step lengths are not constant but rather are chosen from a probability distribution with a power-law tail. Realizations of Lévy flights in physical phenomena are very diverse, examples including fluid dynamics, dynamical systems, and micelles 1,2 . This diversity raises the possibility that Lévy flights may be found in biological systems. A decade ago, it was proposed that Lévy flights may be observed in the behaviour of foraging ants 3 . Recently, it was argued that Drosophila might perform Lévy flights 4 , but the hypothesis that foraging animals in natural environments perform Lévy flights has not been tested. Here we study the foraging behaviour of the wandering albatross Diomedea exulans , and find a power-law distribution of flight-time intervals. We interpret our finding of temporal scale invariance in terms of a scale-invariant spatial distribution of food on the ocean surface. Finally, we examine the significance of our finding in relation to the basis of scale-invariant phenomena observed in biological systems.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/381413a0