Citation
Scaling laws of marine predator search behaviour
TL;DR
Marine predators across species show Lévy flight patterns
Sims et al. provided extensive empirical evidence that marine predators including albatrosses exhibit Lévy flight patterns when foraging. GPS tracking data across multiple species confirmed the theoretical predictions from Viswanathan's work.
This research validates that Lévy flights aren't just mathematically optimal - they actually emerge in nature across diverse species facing similar search problems, strengthening the biological foundation for business applications.
Key Findings from Sims et al. (2008)
- Marine predators across species show Lévy flight patterns
- GPS tracking confirms power-law distribution of movement distances
- Pattern is consistent across sharks, turtles, penguins, and albatrosses
- Lévy flights appear to be convergent evolutionary solution to sparse resource search