CCS 2026 | Complexity Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB)

General Information

Animal groups can be considered as complex systems of interacting entities (the individuals). The collective behaviour of animal groups is an emergent outcome of the traits of individuals within the group and their social interactions. The group- and population-level structures and dynamics that result have profound implications for key ecological (e.g., infectious disease transmission) and evolutionary processes, meaning that they are of great fundamental and applied interest.

While massive steps forward have happened in applying complex systems approaches —such as social network analysis— to study animal behaviour, there remains limited exchange between the research fields. Not only could more interdisciplinary work contribute greatly to answering exciting ecological and evolutionary questions, the datasets now available from non-human animals offer great potential to test key theoretical ideas in complex systems research. Therefore, we are very happy to announce the third edition of Complexity Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB): a cross-disciplinary satellite meeting to encourage greater exchange between these fields within the Conference on Complex Systems. Clashing these two worlds can lead to novel scientific developments because the animal behaviour field, with its massive potential as a source of exciting new datasets, can test key conceptual ideas in complexity science, and because the theory and methods that are continuously developed in the wider field of complex systems can be highly useful for understanding animal systems.

Topics

• Animal social networks
• Collective animal behaviour
• Animal communication
• Animal cognition
• Disease ecology
• Evolutionary biology

Studies that combine complexity and animal behaviour that do not fall within the above are also welcome!

Call for Abstracts

We encourage the submission of abstracts to be considered for contributed talks in the form of 10/15 min presentations.

Participants can submit an abstract in PDF format using the EasyChair website (button below). Authors not already registered on EasyChair should sign up for an account.

Submissions should be at most 2 pages long (including any figure and references) and should include: title, author(s), and affiliation(s).

Submitted abstracts will be evaluated and selected according to adherence with the theme of the satellite, originality of the research, and scientific soundness.

The submission system will remain open until the end of July 1, 2026 (AoE).

Note for newcomers: CRAB is one of the many satellite events embedded within the main CCS conference. The organization of the satellite event is independent of the main conference, and the submission systems are separate. This means that abstracts can be submitted independently to either the main conference or one of the satellite events, and they will be evaluated by different committees. However, please note that the same work should not be presented twice within the same week, as satellites are considered part of the conference.

Source and submission: https://sites.google.com/view/crab2026/home