Scale-free movement patterns in termites emerge from social interactions and preferential attachments

When searching for food or conspecifics with whom to interact, termites perform small displacements interspersed with a few long strides. This is known as Lévy-walk, a pervasive movement pattern in animals. Whether this pattern is blueprinted in the individual instincts or it is modifiable by the context is still under debate. We show that Lévy-walks emerge from collective actions, being modified as the density of individuals in the group changes and absent when individuals interact with inert obstacles. Moreover, our data suggests strongly that preferential attachments, a phenomenon not reported previously, and favourite interactions with a limited number of acquaintances are responsible for the efficient generation of Lévy movement patterns in these social insects.