Information transfer in moving animal groups |
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Authors: | David Sumpter Jerome Buhl Dora Biro Iain Couzin |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK;(2) Department of Mathematics, Uppsala University, Box 480, 75106 Uppsala, Sweden;(3) School of Biological Sciences, Heydon-Laurence Building, A08, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia;(4) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1003, USA |
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Abstract: | Moving animal groups provide some of the most intriguing and difficult to characterise examples of collective behaviour. We
review some recent (and not so recent) empirical research on the motion of animal groups, including fish, locusts and homing
pigeons. An important concept which unifies our understanding of these groups is that of transfer of directional information.
Individuals which change their direction of travel in response to the direction taken by their near neighbours can quickly
transfer information about the presence of a predatory threat or food source. We show that such information transfer is optimised
when the density of individuals in a group is close to that at which a phase transition occurs between random and ordered
motion. Similarly, we show that even relatively small differences in information possessed by group members can lead to strong
collective-level decisions for one of two options. By combining the use of self-propelled particle and social force models
of collective motion with thinking about the evolution of flocking we aim to better understand how complexity arises within
these groups.
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