David J. T. Sumpter

My research aims to untangle and make sense of the web of intricate communications between animals that live in groups: to understand their collective organisation. Some of the groups I study, such as ant and human societies, are highly co-operative while others, such as swarms of locusts, are driven by a shared, but selfish desire for food or shelter. The study of these groups means addressing a number of general questions: how do societies make informed, consensus decisions?; how do ecological interactions produce population dynamics?; and how does information flow between individuals in a complex, ever changing environment? I try to answer these questions through a combination of laboratory and field experiments, computer simulations and mathematical models.