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Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons

Travelling in groups gives animals opportunities to share route information by following cues from each other's movement. The outcome of group navigation will depend on how individuals respond to each other within a flock, school, swarm or herd. Despite the abundance of modelling studies, only...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pettit, Benjamin, Perna, Andrea, Biro, Dora, Sumpter, David J. T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3808543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24068173
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2013.0529
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author Pettit, Benjamin
Perna, Andrea
Biro, Dora
Sumpter, David J. T.
author_facet Pettit, Benjamin
Perna, Andrea
Biro, Dora
Sumpter, David J. T.
author_sort Pettit, Benjamin
collection PubMed
description Travelling in groups gives animals opportunities to share route information by following cues from each other's movement. The outcome of group navigation will depend on how individuals respond to each other within a flock, school, swarm or herd. Despite the abundance of modelling studies, only recently have researchers developed techniques to determine the interaction rules among real animals. Here, we use high-resolution GPS (global positioning system) tracking to study these interactions in pairs of pigeons flying home from a familiar site. Momentary changes in velocity indicate alignment with the neighbour's direction, as well as attraction or avoidance depending on distance. Responses were stronger when the neighbour was in front. From the flocking behaviour, we develop a model to predict features of group navigation. Specifically, we show that the interactions between pigeons stabilize a side-by-side configuration, promoting bidirectional information transfer and reducing the risk of separation. However, if one bird gets in front it will lead directional choices. Our model further predicts, and observations confirm, that a faster bird (as measured from solo flights) will fly slightly in front and thus dominate the choice of homing route. Our results explain how group decisions emerge from individual differences in homing flight behaviour.
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spelling pubmed-38085432013-12-06 Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons Pettit, Benjamin Perna, Andrea Biro, Dora Sumpter, David J. T. J R Soc Interface Research Articles Travelling in groups gives animals opportunities to share route information by following cues from each other's movement. The outcome of group navigation will depend on how individuals respond to each other within a flock, school, swarm or herd. Despite the abundance of modelling studies, only recently have researchers developed techniques to determine the interaction rules among real animals. Here, we use high-resolution GPS (global positioning system) tracking to study these interactions in pairs of pigeons flying home from a familiar site. Momentary changes in velocity indicate alignment with the neighbour's direction, as well as attraction or avoidance depending on distance. Responses were stronger when the neighbour was in front. From the flocking behaviour, we develop a model to predict features of group navigation. Specifically, we show that the interactions between pigeons stabilize a side-by-side configuration, promoting bidirectional information transfer and reducing the risk of separation. However, if one bird gets in front it will lead directional choices. Our model further predicts, and observations confirm, that a faster bird (as measured from solo flights) will fly slightly in front and thus dominate the choice of homing route. Our results explain how group decisions emerge from individual differences in homing flight behaviour. The Royal Society 2013-12-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3808543/ /pubmed/24068173 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2013.0529 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ © 2013 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Pettit, Benjamin
Perna, Andrea
Biro, Dora
Sumpter, David J. T.
Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
title Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
title_full Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
title_fullStr Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
title_full_unstemmed Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
title_short Interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
title_sort interaction rules underlying group decisions in homing pigeons
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3808543/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24068173
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2013.0529
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