Related papers: Hierarchical group dynamics in pigeon flocks

We investigate how localized inhomogeneity affects the geometry and stability of migratory bird formations. We use a lifting-line model with a horseshoe-vortex representation to describe the longitudinal dynamics of aerodynamic…

In swarms of flying insects, the motions of individuals are largely uncoordinated with those of their neighbors, unlike the highly ordered motion of bird flocks. However, it has been observed that insects may transiently form pairs with…

In animal societies as well as in human crowds, many observed collective behaviours result from self-organized processes based on local interactions among individuals. However, models of crowd dynamics are still lacking a systematic…

Bird flocks are a paradigmatic example of collective motion. One of the prominent experimental traits discovered about flocks is the presence of long range velocity correlations between individuals, which allow them to influence each other…

Pedestrian crowds often include social groups, i.e. pedestrians that walk together because of social relationships. They show characteristic configurations and influence the dynamics of the entire crowd. In order to investigate the impact…

Collective dynamics of many interacting particles have been widely studied because of a wealth of their behavioral patterns quite different from the individual traits. A selective way of birds that reacts to their neighbors is one of the…

We derive a new method to infer from data the out-of-equilibrium alignment dynamics of collectively moving animal groups, by considering the maximum entropy distribution consistent with temporal and spatial correlations of flight direction.…

The interactions between individuals play a pivotal role in shaping the structure and dynamics of social systems. Complex network models have proven invaluable in uncovering the underlying mechanisms that govern the formation and evolution…

The aerial flocking of birds, or murmurations, has fascinated observers while presenting many challenges to behavioral study and simulation. We examine how the periphery of murmurations remain well bounded and cohesive. We also investigate…

Avian flocks display a wide variety of flight behaviors, including steady directed translation of center of mass, rapid change of overall morphology, re-shuffling of positions of individuals within a persistent form, etc. These behaviors…

Long arrays of identical, self-propelling flapping flyers are inherently unstable and thus unlikely to exist without active control mechanisms. One approach to enable long in-line formations is to enforce a constant separation between the…

Representing social systems as networks, starting from the interactions between individuals, sheds light on the mechanisms governing their dynamics. However, networks encode only pairwise interactions, while most social interactions occur…

Flocking is a fascinating phenomenon observed across a wide range of living organisms. We investigate, based on a simple self-propelled particle model, how the emergence of ordered motion in a collectively moving group is influenced by the…

Collectives are often able to process information in a distributed fashion, surpassing each individual member's processing capacity. In fission-fusion dynamics, where group members come together and split from others often, sharing…

Fuelled by a desire for greater connectivity, networked systems now pervade our society at an unprecedented level that will affect it in ways we do not yet understand. In contrast, nature has already developed efficient networks that can…

Classic computational models of collective motion suggest that simple local averaging rules can promote many observed group level patterns. Recent studies, however, suggest that rules simpler than local averaging may be at play in real…

Sheep are gregarious animals, and they often aggregate into dense, cohesive flocks, especially under stress. In this paper, we use image processing tools to analyze a publicly available aerial video showing a dense sheep flock moving under…

In recent years it has become evident the need of understanding how failure of coordination imposes constraints on the size of stable groups that highly social mammals can live in. We examine here the forces that keep animals together as a…

How do groups of individuals achieve consensus in movement decisions? Do individuals follow their friends, the one predetermined leader, or whomever just happens to be nearby? To address these questions computationally, we formalize…

How do social animals make effective decisions in the absence of a leader? While coordination can improve accuracy, it also introduces delays as information propagates through the group. In changing environments, these delays can outweigh…