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Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans

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  • Andy Reynolds
  • Eliane Ceccon
  • Cristina Baldauf
  • Tassia Karina Medeiros
  • Octavio Miramontes

Abstract

Movement patterns resembling Lévy walks, often attributed to the execution of an advantageous probabilistic searching strategy, are found in a wide variety of organisms, from cells to human hunter-gatherers. It has been suggested that such movement patterns may be fundamental to how humans interact and experience the world and that they may have arisen early in our genus with the evolution of a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Here we show that Lévy walks are evident in the Me’Phaa of Mexico, in Brazilian Cariri farmers and in Amazonian farmers when gathering firewood, wild fruit and nuts. Around 50% of the search patterns resemble Lévy walks and these are characterized by Lévy exponents close to 1.7. The other search patterns more closely resemble bi-phasic walks. We suggest potential generative mechanisms for the occurrence of these ubiquitous Lévy walks which can be used to guide future studies on human mobility. We show that frequent excursions and meanderings from pre-existing trails can account for our observations.

Suggested Citation

  • Andy Reynolds & Eliane Ceccon & Cristina Baldauf & Tassia Karina Medeiros & Octavio Miramontes, 2018. "Lévy foraging patterns of rural humans," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-16, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0199099
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0199099
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    1. David W. Sims & Emily J. Southall & Nicolas E. Humphries & Graeme C. Hays & Corey J. A. Bradshaw & Jonathan W. Pitchford & Alex James & Mohammed Z. Ahmed & Andrew S. Brierley & Mark A. Hindell & David, 2008. "Scaling laws of marine predator search behaviour," Nature, Nature, vol. 451(7182), pages 1098-1102, February.
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    1. Rutten, Philip & Lees, Michael H. & Klous, Sander & Sloot, Peter M.A., 2021. "Intermittent and persistent movement patterns of dance event visitors in large sporting venues," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 563(C).
    2. Toman, Kellan & Voulgarakis, Nikolaos K., 2022. "Stochastic pursuit-evasion curves for foraging dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 597(C).

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