Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Decoupling of emigration timing and skill acquisition in a saturated population of golden eagles

Abstract Many animals must gain independence from parental care by acquiring skills necessary for survival. Thus, the rate of skill acquisition can predict when parental care ends and animals emigrate. However, young animals sometimes acquire adult-like skills long before they em...

Bio-inspired decision making in robot swarms under biases

Abstract To operate autonomously, minimal robot swarms must make timely and reliable collective decisions despite noisy individual sensing and severe constraints on communication, computation, and memory. Achieving this capability could expand their use in applications such as he...

Emerging innovations in movement ecology to address planetary challenges

Abstract Movement ecology—the study of how and why animals move within their environments—stands to offer transformative insights into our rapidly changing world, with benefits for both nature and people. Here, we present the first global horizon scan for movement ecology, engagi...

An elementary form of agency at planetary-scale

Abstract The claim that climate homeorhesis—non-equilibrium steady-state dynamics that underlie Earth’s long-term habitability—depends on an integrated biosphere–climate system capable of acting on its own is central to debates surrounding the Gaia hypothesis. This paper presents...