'Contagion' Of Calm Helps Woodlice Cohesion, Dispersion

Calming down excited neighbors isn't too difficult. In fact, it's actually contagious for some creatures, including woodlice, an isopod crustacean with a rigid, segmented long exoskeleton and fourteen jointed limbs. Though they're not always so easily seen, these animals like to hang out under stones or barks in amateur gardens.

New findings published in PLOS Computational Biology reveal these guys, when it comes to calming down excited neighbors, there is actually a ‘contagion' between the different behavioral states of woodlice that may govern the stability within groups.

For the study, lead researchers Pierre Broly and Jean-Louis Deneubourg of the Free Brussels University (Belgium) combined both experiments and mathematical models to show that calm individuals reduce the excitation of their neighbors which, in turn, helped calm them down quite a bit. Furthermore, this results in a more cohesive group all around.

The researchers point out to this behavioral model from the woodlice as a pedagogical model in many schools regarding the study of conduct. In fact, they go as so far to say that this simple experimental procedure could also be presented and more easily reproducible with children when introducing the basic conceptions of collective behavior as well as social interaction.

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