Loners help society survive, say Princeton ecologists

Loners help society survive, say Princeton ecologists

Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications March 27, 2020 

It isn’t easy being a loner — someone who resists the pull of the crowd, who marches to their own drummer.

But loners exist across the natural world, and they might just serve a purpose, said Corina Tarnita, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. She ticked off examples of loners who sit out their species’ collective actions: the small herd that skips the great wildebeest migration, the locusts that peel off from the swarm and revert to calm grasshopper behaviors, the handful of bamboo that flower a few days before or after the rest of the species, and the slime molds that hang back from forming the swaying towers studied by Princeton luminary John Bonner.

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