Workshop: From Individual to Aggregration: Modeling Animal Grouping

Patterns of aggregation, including schools of fish, flocks of birds, and herds of ungulates, are among the most striking patterns in biology. How do such patterns arise from decisions taken at the level of individuals? A promising approach begins from Lagrangian (e.g. Newtonian) descriptions of individual responses to the environment and to each other, derives macroscopic descriptions, and proceeds to Eulerian descriptions. The mathematical issues will involve Lagrangian/Eulerian connections, moment closure and other methods for proceeding from small to large scales.