The Geometry of Decision-Making in Networked Biological Systems
Abstract
In 1905 the biologist Edmund Selous wrote of his wonderment when observing a flock of starlings flying overhead “they circle; now dense like a polished roof, now disseminated like the meshes of some vast all-heaven-sweeping net…wheeling, rending, darting…a madness in the sky”. He went on to speculate “They must think collectively, all at the same time, or at least in streaks or patches — a square yard or so of an idea, a flash out of so many brains”. Today, we still know relatively little about how the network of social interactions connect brains—and thus how sensing and information processing arises in such organismal collectives. Employing automated tracking, computational reconstruction of sensory information, and immersive ‘holographic’ virtual reality (VR) experiments, I will discuss newly-discovered geometric principles of collective decision-making that occur across scales of biological organization; from neural networks to the social networks of animal groups. I will also show how this finding can impact humans, including how it can be translated to highly effective control laws for swarming robots, as well as how it has transformed our understanding of locust swarms, one of the most destructive natural phenomena on Earth.
Online (Zoom) Link to register: https://iu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QXAmc5gvRGOWGRwV6rKDbw
Short Bio
Iain Couzin FRS is Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and a Professor and Director (Speaker) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) Excellence Cluster “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Previously he was a full Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. His work aims to reveal the fundamental principles that underlie evolved collective behavior, and consequently his research includes the study of a wide range of biological systems, from neural collectives to insect swarms, fish schools and primate groups. In recognition of his research, he has been the recipient of the Searle Scholar Award (2008); top five most cited papers of the decade in animal behavior research (1999–2010); the National Geographic Emerging Explorer Award (2012); the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London (2013); named a Web of Science Global Highly Cited Researcher (2018–2022 and 2024); the Lagrange Prize (for fundamental contributions to complexity science, 2019); the Falling Walls Life Sciences Award and the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (Germany’s highest research honor) (2022); the Rothschild Distinguished Fellowship at the University of Cambridge (2023); the Fyssen International Prize (2024); and the President’s Medal of the Royal Society of Entomology and Fellow of the Royal Society (2025).