Hierarchical group dynamics in pigeon flocks
Open accessAbstract
Animals that travel together in groups display a variety of fascinating motion patterns thought to be the result of delicate local interactions among group members. Although the most informative way of investigating and interpreting collective movement phenomena would be afforded by the collection of high-resolution spatiotemporal data from moving individuals, such data are scarce and are virtually non-existent for long-distance group motion within a natural setting because of the associated technological difficulties. Here we present results of experiments in which track logs of homing pigeons flying in flocks of up to 10 individuals have been obtained by high-resolution lightweight GPS devices and analysed using a variety of correlation functions inspired by approaches common in statistical physics. We find a well-defined hierarchy among flock members from data concerning leading roles in pairwise interactions, defined on the basis of characteristic delay times between birds' directional choices. The average spatial position of a pigeon within the flock strongly correlates with its place in the hierarchy, and birds respond more quickly to conspecifics perceived primarily through the left eye-both results revealing differential roles for birds that assume different positions with respect to flock-mates. From an evolutionary perspective, our results suggest that hierarchical organization of group flight may be more efficient than an egalitarian one, at least for those flock sizes that permit regular pairwise interactions among group members, during which leader-follower relationships are consistently manifested.
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Machine learning-derived knowledge can be used to infer individual decision rules in collective motion and to compute activity budgets for individuals without continuous human observation or time-consuming video analysis.
“This knowledge can then be used to infer individual decision rules in collective motion (Katz, Tunstrom, Ioannou, Huepe, & Couzin, 2011;Nagy, Kos, Biro, & Vicsek, 2010) and to compute activity budgets for individuals without the need for continuous human observation or time-consuming video analysis.”
From Applications of machine learning in animal behaviour studies (2017) · cites this paper as Nagy et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Nagy, M., Ákos, Z., Biro, D., & Vicsek, T.
- Affiliations
- Eötvös Loránd University (HU)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Vicsek, Tamás
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2010-04-08
- Volume
- 464
- Issue
- 7290
- Pages
- 890-893
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2152132532
- Cited by
- 1,053
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 76 · 2024: 78 · 2023: 79 · 2022: 72 · 2021: 85 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 67 · 2017: 71 · 2016: 67 · 2015: 69 · 2014: 62 · 2013: 53 · 2012: 41
- FWCI
- 40.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Avian ecology and behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems
- Keywords
- bird flocks, homing pigeons, social hierarchy, pecking order, collective motion, group flight, GPS tracking, pairwise interactions, flock size, correlation functions, homing behavior
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Decision Making, Flight, Animal, Group Processes, Hierarchy, Social, Leadership, Locomotion, Models, Biological, Columbidae, Geographic Information Systems
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