Choosing to maximize distance
from group members results in animats positioning around the enclosure
perimeter
J.Z. Zhou and W.R. Stricklin
University of Maryland,
College Park, USA
Closely confined animals
have been reported to use the floor area adjacent to the perimeter of their
enclosure at a greater rate than other portions of the enclosure's floor
area. Explanations for these results have been that animals are 1)
avoiding the pen center where agonistic encounters may be more likely to
occur or 2) engaging in thigmotaxic (contact seeking) behavior. In
the current research, a computer program was written to simulate the distributions
of confined animats (computer simulated animals) that move using strategies
that can be controlled by us. In one
simulation, animats moved
randomly. In another set of simulations, animats moved based on maximizing
the distance to the first nearest neighbor (NN), the nearest two NN, the
nearest three NN, etc. until the final simulation which was based on animats
that moved to maximize distance from all group-mates. We determined
that increasing the number of NN group-mates that a moving animat maximally
positioned away from resulted in an increase in the proportion of animats
positioning around the boundary. These results suggest that closely
confined animals may occupy the perimeter at a greater than expected rate
because they choose to maximize their distance from some or all of their
group-mates.