An agent-based model for community formation process of vampire bats that survive by sharing food

Abstract

Animals often swarm and form communities to survive in harsh and complex environments. Toward improving the vulnerability of engineering systems against power-source limitations, we focused on food-sharing community of vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus). Although vampire bats die within 3 days if they fail to acquire any food, they can survive over 10 years by forming a highly sophisticated community wherein they share food with each other. In this study, we developed a simple mathematical model for the community formation process and demonstrated its validity via simulation.