Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29326297›Full record

ReviewBiology open2018

Current status and future directions of Lévy walk research.

Andy M Reynolds

Open access · goldAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Biology open, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
44citing papers in PubMed
6.6field-weighted citation impact, top 2% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

44 citing papers in PubMed, 132 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Review
  5. Socioeconomic Gauging of Brown and Levy Power Motions.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Brown and Levy Steady-State Motions.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
    Article
  8. Levy Noise Affects Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Memory.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Smart active particles learn and transcend bacterial foraging strategies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Scanning behaviour in ants: an interplay between random-rate processes and oscillators.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2023
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.

Andy M ReynoldsRothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 2JQ, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2492-0341
Rothamsted Research · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Lévy walks are a mathematical construction useful for describing random patterns of movement with bizarre fractal properties that seem to have no place in biology. Nonetheless, movement patterns resembling Lévy walks have been observed at scales ranging from the microscopic to the ecological. They have been seen in the molecular machinery operating within cells during intracellular trafficking, in the movement patterns of T cells within the brain, in DNA, in some molluscs, insects, fish, birds and mammals, in the airborne flights of spores and seeds, and in the collective movements of some animal groups. Lévy walks are also evident in trace fossils (ichnofossils) - the preserved form of tracks made by organisms that occupied ancient sea beds about 252-66 million years ago. And they are utilised by algae that originated around two billion years ago, and still exist today. In September of 2017, leading researchers from across the life sciences, along with mathematicians and physicists, got together at a Company of Biologists' Workshop to discuss the origins and biological significance of these movement patterns. In this Review the essence of the technical and sometimes heated discussions is distilled and made accessible for all. In just a few pages, the reader is taken from a gentle introduction to the frontiers of a very active field of scientific enquiry. What emerges is a fascinating story of a truly inter-disciplinary scientific endeavour that is seeking to better understand movement patterns occurring across all biological scales.

Indexed as

Animal movement patternsLévy walksOptimal foraging

Identifiers

PMID29326297
PMCPMC5829503
OpenAlexW2788829204

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.