Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking
A key question in collective behavior is how individual differences structure animal groups, affect the flow of information, and give some group members greater weight in decisions. Depending on what factors contribute to leadership, despotic decisions could either improve decision accuracy or inter...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Elsevier
2015
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| _version_ | 1797092702682087424 |
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| author | Pettit, B Akos, Z Vicsek, T Biro, D |
| author_facet | Pettit, B Akos, Z Vicsek, T Biro, D |
| author_sort | Pettit, B |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | A key question in collective behavior is how individual differences structure animal groups, affect the flow of information, and give some group members greater weight in decisions. Depending on what factors contribute to leadership, despotic decisions could either improve decision accuracy or interfere with swarm intelligence. The mechanisms behind leadership are therefore important for understanding its functional significance. In this study, we compared pigeons’ relative influence over flock direction to their solo flight characteristics. A pigeon’s degree of leadership was predicted by its ground speeds from earlier solo flights, but not by the straightness of its previous solo route. By testing the birds individually after a series of flock flights, we found that leaders had learned straighter homing routes than followers, as we would expect if followers attended less to the landscape and more to conspecifics. We repeated the experiment from three homing sites using multiple independent flocks and found individual consistency in leadership and speed. Our results suggest that the leadership hierarchies observed in previous studies could arise from differences in the birds’ typical speeds. Rather than reflecting social preferences that optimize group decisions, leadership may be an inevitable consequence of heterogeneous flight characteristics within self-organized flocks. We also found that leaders learn faster and become better navigators, even if leadership is not initially due to navigational ability. The roles that individuals fall into during collective motion might therefore have far-reaching effects on how they learn about the environment and use social information. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:49:47Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:c0d27fb8-e419-4267-b42f-7a1fb9049fc4 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:49:47Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:c0d27fb8-e419-4267-b42f-7a1fb9049fc42022-03-27T05:57:15ZSpeed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flockingJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:c0d27fb8-e419-4267-b42f-7a1fb9049fc4Symplectic Elements at OxfordElsevier2015Pettit, BAkos, ZVicsek, TBiro, DA key question in collective behavior is how individual differences structure animal groups, affect the flow of information, and give some group members greater weight in decisions. Depending on what factors contribute to leadership, despotic decisions could either improve decision accuracy or interfere with swarm intelligence. The mechanisms behind leadership are therefore important for understanding its functional significance. In this study, we compared pigeons’ relative influence over flock direction to their solo flight characteristics. A pigeon’s degree of leadership was predicted by its ground speeds from earlier solo flights, but not by the straightness of its previous solo route. By testing the birds individually after a series of flock flights, we found that leaders had learned straighter homing routes than followers, as we would expect if followers attended less to the landscape and more to conspecifics. We repeated the experiment from three homing sites using multiple independent flocks and found individual consistency in leadership and speed. Our results suggest that the leadership hierarchies observed in previous studies could arise from differences in the birds’ typical speeds. Rather than reflecting social preferences that optimize group decisions, leadership may be an inevitable consequence of heterogeneous flight characteristics within self-organized flocks. We also found that leaders learn faster and become better navigators, even if leadership is not initially due to navigational ability. The roles that individuals fall into during collective motion might therefore have far-reaching effects on how they learn about the environment and use social information. |
| spellingShingle | Pettit, B Akos, Z Vicsek, T Biro, D Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| title | Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| title_full | Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| title_fullStr | Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| title_full_unstemmed | Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| title_short | Speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| title_sort | speed determines leadership and leadership determines learning during pigeon flocking |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT pettitb speeddeterminesleadershipandleadershipdetermineslearningduringpigeonflocking AT akosz speeddeterminesleadershipandleadershipdetermineslearningduringpigeonflocking AT vicsekt speeddeterminesleadershipandleadershipdetermineslearningduringpigeonflocking AT birod speeddeterminesleadershipandleadershipdetermineslearningduringpigeonflocking |