title: Reciprocal relationships in collective flights of homing pigeons.
abstract: Collective motion of bird flocks can be explained via the hypothesis of many wrongs and/or a structured leadership mechanism. In pigeons, previous studies have shown that there is a well-defined hierarchical structure and certain specific individuals occupy more dominant positions, suggesting that leadership by the few individuals drives the behavior of the collective. Conversely, by analyzing the same datasets, we uncover a more egalitarian mechanism. We show that both reciprocal relationships and a stratified hierarchical leadership are important and necessary in the collective movements of pigeon flocks. Rather than birds adopting either exclusive averaging or leadership strategies, our experimental results show that it is an integrated combination of both compromise and leadership which drives the group's movement decisions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. xiaokeeie@gmail.com
authors.forename: Xiao-Ke
authors.initials: XK
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Graciano Dieck
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Kattas
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Small
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D010856:Columbidae / Q000502:physiology*; D005426:Flight, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006126:Group Processes; D006702:Homing Behavior; D007857:Leadership; D008954:Models, Biological; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D012930:Social Dominance; D013997:Time Factors