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Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks

Animal groups have emergent properties that result from simple interactions among individuals. However, we know little about why animals adopt different interaction rules because of sparse sampling among species. Here, we identify an interaction rule that holds across single and mixed-species flocks...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Corcoran, Aaron J, Hedrick, Tyson L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6548498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31162047
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45071
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author Corcoran, Aaron J
Hedrick, Tyson L
author_facet Corcoran, Aaron J
Hedrick, Tyson L
author_sort Corcoran, Aaron J
collection PubMed
description Animal groups have emergent properties that result from simple interactions among individuals. However, we know little about why animals adopt different interaction rules because of sparse sampling among species. Here, we identify an interaction rule that holds across single and mixed-species flocks of four migratory shorebird species spanning a seven-fold range of body masses. The rule, aligning with a one-wingspan lateral distance to nearest neighbors in the same horizontal plane, scales linearly with wingspan but is independent of nearest neighbor distance and neighbor species. This rule propagates outward to create a global flock structure that we term the compound-V formation. We propose that this formation represents an intermediary between the cluster flocks of starlings and the simple-V formations of geese and other large migratory birds. We explore multiple hypotheses regarding the benefit of this flock structure and how it differs from structures observed in other flocking species.
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spelling pubmed-65484982019-06-12 Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks Corcoran, Aaron J Hedrick, Tyson L eLife Evolutionary Biology Animal groups have emergent properties that result from simple interactions among individuals. However, we know little about why animals adopt different interaction rules because of sparse sampling among species. Here, we identify an interaction rule that holds across single and mixed-species flocks of four migratory shorebird species spanning a seven-fold range of body masses. The rule, aligning with a one-wingspan lateral distance to nearest neighbors in the same horizontal plane, scales linearly with wingspan but is independent of nearest neighbor distance and neighbor species. This rule propagates outward to create a global flock structure that we term the compound-V formation. We propose that this formation represents an intermediary between the cluster flocks of starlings and the simple-V formations of geese and other large migratory birds. We explore multiple hypotheses regarding the benefit of this flock structure and how it differs from structures observed in other flocking species. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2019-06-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6548498/ /pubmed/31162047 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45071 Text en © 2019, Corcoran and Hedrick http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Biology
Corcoran, Aaron J
Hedrick, Tyson L
Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks
title Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks
title_full Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks
title_fullStr Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks
title_full_unstemmed Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks
title_short Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks
title_sort compound-v formations in shorebird flocks
topic Evolutionary Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6548498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31162047
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45071
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