Ingrid Fadelli is a writer for the website Phys.org.
Scientists are interested in the motion of animals in a group. Strategies for promoting positive social change and technologies that mimic nature can sometimes be inspired by understanding collective behaviors.
Many studies describe flocking behavior as a self-organized process with individuals in a group continuously adapting their direction and speed to achieve a collective motion. The possible benefits of having a leader guide the way are not considered by this perspective.
The collective behavior of small flocks of sheep has been examined by physicists at three different universities. By alternating between the roles of leader and follower, the flock can achieve some form of collective intelligence, according to their findings.
Collective motion phases are interrupted in some animal systems, for example to rest or feed. Group that remain, from the beginning till the end, are considered in most collective motion studies. It is assumed that people need to negotiate on the direction of travel.
The goal of the recent work was to investigate the collective motion of an animal system in a way that explicitly considers the temporal aspect of the observed self-organized process. The team wanted to adopt an alternative andholistic perspective that considered the animal group's motion as a collection of phases.
The mechanisms of information sharing and consensus decision-making adopt a new perspective from this perspective.
They studied the behavior of small groups of sheep over a period of time. They analyzed the trajectory of individual flock members and computed their overall spatial order and orientation.
No of the existing flocking models, or extensions of them, is in line with our observations. We looked at how information travels through the group, identified an interaction network consistent with the data, and looked at which information is transmitted through this network.
The interaction network representing the behavior of the flocks was high up in the hierarchy. The network only has information about the sheep's position in the group.
The researchers used their findings to build a model of collective animal motion. The selection of a leader who will lead for a certain amount of time is one of the processes.
The mathematical properties of the model were investigated to identify the advantages of the unveiled collective strategy. The main contribution is the animals, by using a hierarchical interaction network to move together for a while give full control of the group to the temporal leader, but there is also a rapid turnover of temporal leaders.
The researchers found that sheep alternate between being a leader and follower. When control of the group is transferred to another sheep, leaders only lead the group for a short period of time.
The temporal leader can efficiently guide the group if he has knowledge relevant to the group. This only works if everyone follows the temporal leader.
The findings gathered by Peruani and his colleagues shed some light on the dynamics underpinning the collective motion. Further experiments with larger herds and different animals are needed to investigate the extent to which these findings can be generalized.
If there is a temporal leader at every moment, how does the group share information with each individual member of the group? Is it possible for the group to improve its ability to navigate? Is the group intelligent? "Periani said." The group is able to exhibit information pooling and collective intelligence when the temporal leader is changed frequently.
The recent work done by this team of researchers shows the possibility that some naturally occurring collective animal strategies can take advantage of both democratic andHierarchical organizational schemes. Their observations could lead to new studies looking at the physics and biology behind these intriguing animal behaviors.
Group of different agents are being used to investigate collective motion. We are comparing the behavior of groups of lambs, young sheep, and adult sheep to see if they learn to act as one over time. We are looking at how groups behave in mazes and arenas with different food patches that can cause a conflict of interests. We are looking at how collectives distribute and process information.
Intermittent collective motion in sheep is the result of alternating the role of leader and follower. The DOI is 10.1038/s4156
Journal information: Nature Physics
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