Multi-organism systems, as a physical system, comprise interacting biological entities from one or multiple species that collectively exhibit emergent properties not attributable to individual organisms alone. These systems encompass microbial consortia, host–microbiome assemblages, plant–pollinator networks, and multi-species communities structured by trophic, competitive, mutualistic, or parasitic interactions. They are characterized by spatial organization, fluxes of matter and energy, and regulatory feedbacks across multiple scales, often modeled using network theory, dynamical systems, and statistical mechanics. In research, multi-organism systems provide a framework for analyzing community stability, resilience, coevolutionary dynamics, and ecosystem-level functions such as nutrient cycling, productivity, and biogeochemical regulation.
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses? The famous question, though implausible, reflects a ubiquitous tradeoff between quantity and quality. Now, a study shows that this dilemma operates in biology ...
Evolution
Dec 19, 2025
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100
A research team led by Prof. Wang Kelin from the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has uncovered how multitrophic organisms adapt to phosphorus (P) limitation in subtropical ecosystems.
Ecology
Nov 24, 2025
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1
When animals move together in flocks, herds, or schools, neural dynamics in their brain become synchronized through shared ways of representing space, a new study by researchers from the University of Konstanz (Germany) suggests. ...
Ecology
Oct 13, 2025
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8
Researchers at Seoul National University and Kyung Hee University report a framework to control collective motions, such as ring, clumps, mill, flock, by training a physics-informed AI to learn the local rules that govern ...
General Physics
Sep 26, 2025
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77
From schools of fish darting away from sharks to flocks of starlings swirling through the sky, the animal kingdom is full of examples of how group behavior offers a survival advantage. Through collective behaviors, animals ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 7, 2025
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51
From bird flocking to fish schooling, many biological systems exhibit some type of collective motion, often to improve performance and conserve energy. Compared to other swimmers, manta rays are particularly efficient, and ...
General Physics
May 6, 2025
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12
A crowd or a flock of birds have different characteristics from those of atoms in a material, but when it comes to collective movement, the differences matter less than we might think. We can try to predict the behavior of ...
General Physics
Aug 8, 2024
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87
Active systems display a wide range of complex and fascinating behaviors, many of which are not yet fully understood. Found on scales ranging from microbes and self-propelling particles to large groups of fish, birds, and ...
General Physics
Jun 11, 2024
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0
Physicists are also interested in fish—above all when they are researching the formation of structures. A research team from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) has ...
General Physics
Mar 25, 2024
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75
