Abstract:

Plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum (P. polycephalum) is a large single cell visible by an unaided eye. It shows so-phisticated behavioural traits in foraging for nutrients and developing an optimal transport network of protoplasmic tubes spanning sources of nutrients. When placed in an environment with distributed sources of nutrients the cell ‘computes’ an optimal graph spanning the nutrients by growing a network of protoplasmic tubes. P. polycephalum imitates development of man-made transport networks of a country when configuration of nutrients represents major urban areas. We employed this feature of the slime mould to imitate mexican migration to USA. The Mexican migration to USA is the World’s largest migration system. We bio-physically imitated the migration using slime mould P. polycephalum. In laboratory experiments with 3D Nylon terrains of USA we imitated development of migratory routes from Mexico-USA border to ten urban areas with high concen-tration of Mexican migrants. From results of laboratory experiments we extracted topologies of migratory routes, and high-lighted a role of elevations in shaping the human movement networks.

Key words: biomimetics, bio-inspired computing, migration routes, slime mould