C elegans show convoluted social behaviours, one of which is aggregation. The aggregation is often connected to factors; like starvation and selected advantages. A recent study has been made to further determine those behaviours and their causes; and also to answer the question “why do these aggregations happen and what do they provide?”

The behavioural pattern of C elegans is normally exhibited through the presence of food; when there’s availability of food, the isolated C elegans begin to aggregate and move towards the food; and this is known as social feeding. Some of them also prefer the oxygen not to be concentrated. Some researchers have noted that higher consumption of oxygen levels in a cluster or an aggregation of worms lowers the oxygen levels and therefore more C elegans are attracted.

Recent research findings state that some taxis mechanisms allow the C elegans to move in a specific direction; the one they prefer to go to. Further researches and experiments have concluded that the density changes when the aggregate is moving to a lower surface or an inclined one; so the aggregate moves left if the right side is higher than the left side. However, there were also some worms that moved at a random direction; which the cause hasn’t been detected, no clear signs were found to identify the cause of those random movements or as to why they separated from the aggregation and moved individually.

Currently, a lot of research is being conducted as to determine and understand more about the formation of these aggregations of the C elegans and to further understand their behaviours; both individual and collective.