Bird flight demonstrates method for dissecting leadership

Penelitian - The scientists analyzed the bird tandem flight recorded in the natural environment to demonstrate a new method for dissecting the potential for change in leadership on self-propelled particles in which the emergence of leader-follower relationships can be controlled. The team claims this method is an effective new methodological tool to advance the understanding of collective behavior.

Leader-follower relationships are generally hypothesized as the fundamental mechanisms underlying collective behavior in many biological and physical systems. Such behavior controls the dynamics of complex systems to the desired state.

Previous studies have partially faced major constraints by the limitations of methods for dissecting intermittent causal relationships where leadership is assumed to be consistent in space and time. This assumption has been contrasted with recent advances in animal behavior studies.



"We used information theory and time series analysis to propose new and simple methods to dissect changes in causal influences. Our method provides a new methodological tool for analyzing collective behavior," said Violet Mwaffo of the University of Colorado at Boulder and colleagues.

Journal : Violet Mwaffo et al. Detecting intermittent switching leadership in coupled dynamical systems, Scientific Reports, 09 July 2018, DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28285-1