Simulating meerkat behaviour

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Date
2019-06
Authors
Zuyyin Hazwani Binti Zainal
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Behaviour can be defined as the change in organism activities in response to a stimulus, an internal or external cue or a combo of cues. Animal behaviour includes the ways of animals interact with other members of their species, other organisms of other species and their physical environment. Behaviours are mostly learned or developed through experiences, but some behaviours are genetically hardwired or innate. Behaviours are not only important to animals, but they also play a critical role in biological adaptations. In this research project, meerkat behaviours are observed and their foraging behaviour is chosen and simulated in an agent-based modelling platform. Before the modelling could be done, the foraging behaviour of the meerkats is studied to fully understand their behaviour. The modelling designed included the number of groups form, dividing the task among the members of the group, and the procedure of each task that needed to be done. In conclusion, the model will simulate the behaviour of the meerkats foraging for food to survive in its habitat. The simulations were run in 2 cases where these cases are further divided into 3 cases each which in total 6 cases. For each case, the simulation run 10 times. Where the results were analyzed and graphs were plotted using the average of the results.
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