Related papers: Hierarchical group dynamics in pigeon flocks
At what level does selective pressure effectively act? When considering the reproductive dynamics of interacting and mutating agents, it has long been debated whether selection is better understood by focusing on the individual or if…
Collective behavior pervades biological systems, from flocks of birds to neural assemblies and human societies. Yet, how such collectives acquire functional properties -- such as joint agency or knowledge -- that transcend those of their…
For group-living animals, reaching consensus to stay cohesive is crucial for their fitness, particularly when collective motion starts and stops. Understanding the decision-making at individual and collective levels upon sudden disturbances…
Despite the fact that grouping behavior has been actively studied for over a century, the relative importance of the numerous proposed fitness benefits of grouping remain unclear. We use a digital model of evolving prey under simulated…
We review a general class of models for self-organized dynamics based on alignment. The dynamics of such systems is governed solely by interactions among individuals or "agents," with the tendency to adjust to their `environmental…
Leadership plays a key role in social animals, including humans, decision-making and coalescence in coordinated activities such as hunting, migration, sport, diplomatic negotiation etc. In these coordinated activities, leadership is a…
In a system of many similar self-propelled entities such as flocks of birds, fish school, cells and molecules, the interactions with neighbors can lead to a "coherent state", meaning the formation of visually compelling aggregation patterns…
Behavioral heterogeneities in animals, also known as syndromes, play a crucial role in understanding how natural populations flexibly adapt to environmental changes. In ant species like \textit{Aphaenogaster senilis}, two key roles in…
Moving groups are routinely faced with a choice of different routes as part of their daily lives, such as choosing between exits from a building. Differences in moving speeds and environmental constraints often lead to individuals being…
The most startling examples of collective animal behaviour are provided by very large and cohesive groups moving in three dimensions. Paradigmatic examples are bird flocks, fish schools and insect swarms. However, because of the sheer…
The features of animal population dynamics, for instance, flocking and migration, are often synchronized for survival under large-scale climate change or perceived threats. These coherent phenomena have been explained using synchronization…
We have developed an experimental setup of very simple self-propelled robots to observe collective motion emerging as a result of inelastic collisions only. A circular pool and commercial RC boats were the basis of our first setup, where we…
Collective motion in animal groups, such as swarms of insects, flocks of birds, and schools of fish, are some of the most visually striking examples of emergent behavior. Empirical analysis of these behaviors in experiment or computational…
Often, experiments, observations or simulations generate large numbers of snapshots of the configurations of complex many-particle systems. It is important to find methods of extracting useful information from these ensembles of snapshots…
We consider flocks of artificial birds and study the emergence of V-like formations during flight. We introduce a small set of fully distributed positioning rules to guide the birds' movements and demonstrate, by means of simulations, that…
Being determined by human social behaviour, pedestrian group dynamics depends on "intrinsic properties" of the group such as the purpose of the pedestrians, their personal relation, their gender, age, and body size. In this work we…
Soaring migrants exploit columns of rising air (thermals) to cover large distances with minimal energy. Employing social information while locating thermals may be beneficial, but examining collective movements in wild migrants has been a…
Interactions among living organisms, from bacteria colonies to human societies, are inherently more complex than interactions among particles and nonliving matter. Group interactions are a particularly important and widespread class,…
Many real systems are strongly characterized by collective cooperative phenomena whose existence and properties still need a satisfactory explanation. Coherently with their collective nature, they call for new and more accurate descriptions…
We bound the time it takes for a group of birds to reach steady state in a standard flocking model. We prove that (i) within single exponential time fragmentation ceases and each bird settles on a fixed flying direction; (ii) the flocking…