Using activity and sociability to characterize collective motion

A wide range of measurements can be made on the collective motion of groups, and the movement of individuals within them. These include, but are not limited to: group size, polarization, speed, turning speed, speed or directional correlations, and distances to near neighbours. From an ecological and evolutionary perspective, we would like to know which of these measurements capture biologically meaningful aspects of an animal's behaviour and contribute to its survival chances. Previous simulation studies have emphasized two main factors shaping individuals' behaviour in groups; attraction and alignment. Alignment responses appear to be important in transferring information between group members and providing synergistic benefits to group members. Likewise, attraction to conspecifics is thought to provide benefits through, for example, selfish herding. Here, we use a factor analysis on a wide range of simple measurements to identify two main axes of collective motion in guppies (Poecilia reticulata): (i) sociability, which corresponds to attraction (and to a lesser degree alignment) to neighbours, and (ii) activity, which combines alignment with directed movement. We show that for guppies, predation in a natural environment produces higher degrees of sociability and (in females) lower degrees of activity, while female guppies sorted for higher degrees of collective alignment have higher degrees of both sociability and activity. We suggest that the activity and sociability axes provide a useful framework for measuring the behaviour of animals in groups, allowing the comparison of individual and collective behaviours within and between species. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Collective movement ecology’.