Grazers Move Mountains — The Bhamla Lab

In the Swiss countryside, Ben, a QBIOS PhD student in the Bhamla lab, asks himself, “Where did these lines of grass come from along the mountains?” Curious, he consults research papers, and finds that these are called “teracettes”, and the literature attributes these formations to “soil creep”, in which soil slowly slips down a slope and gathers in ridges. Though grazers such as cows and goats are prevalent along the slopes, the literature contends that animals tracking through soil simply cannot affect topology of mountainsides in such a geometric and prominent way. Curious, the researcher asks himself, “Is that really true?” To answer this, he enlists the help of his lab— the Bhamla Lab. This source attributes teracette formation to soil creep. While grazing animals like cattle have long been linked to the formation of terracettes, the mechanism by which their meandering paths could create repeating patterns remains unclear. To explore this, we developed an agent-based model in which

In the Swiss countryside, Ben, a QBIOS PhD student in the Bhamla lab, asks himself, “Where did these lines of grass come from along the mountains?” Curious, he consults research papers, and finds that these are called “teracettes”, and the literature attributes these formations to “soil creep”, in which soil slowly slips down a slope and gathers in ridges. Though grazers such as cows and goats are prevalent along the slopes, the literature contends that animals tracking through soil simply cannot affect topology of mountainsides in such a geometric and prominent way. Curious, the researcher as