title: Visual sensory networks and effective information transfer in animal groups.
abstract: Social transmission of information is vital for many group-living animals, allowing coordination of motion and effective response to complex environments. Revealing the interaction networks underlying information flow within these groups is a central challenge. Previous work has modeled interactions between individuals based directly on their relative spatial positions: each individual is considered to interact with all neighbors within a fixed distance (metric range), a fixed number of nearest neighbors (topological range), a 'shell' of near neighbors (Voronoi range), or some combination (Figure 1A). However, conclusive evidence to support these assumptions is lacking. Here, we employ a novel approach that considers individual movement decisions to be based explicitly on the sensory information available to the organism. In other words, we consider that while spatial relations do inform interactions between individuals, they do so indirectly, through individuals' detection of sensory cues. We reconstruct computationally the visual field of each individual throughout experiments designed to investigate information propagation within fish schools (golden shiners, Notemigonus crysoleucas). Explicitly considering visual sensing allows us to more accurately predict the propagation of behavioral change in these groups during leadership events. Furthermore, we find that structural properties of visual interaction networks differ markedly from those of metric and topological counterparts, suggesting that previous assumptions may not appropriately reflect information flow in animal groups.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
authors.forename: Ariana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Strandburg-Peshkin
authors.forename: Colin R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Twomey
authors.forename: Nikolai W F
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Bode
authors.forename: Albert B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Katz
authors.forename: Christos C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Ioannou
authors.forename: Sara B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Rosenthal
authors.forename: Colin J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Torney
authors.forename: Hai Shan
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Simon A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Levin
authors.forename: Iain D
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Couzin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005399:Fishes / Q000502:physiology; D014785:Vision, Ocular
references.citation: PLoS Comput Biol. 2013;9(3):e1002961
references.pmid: 23555206
references.citation: Anim Behav. 2000 Feb;59(2):403-409
references.pmid: 10675263
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Oct 15;105(16):168103
references.pmid: 21231019
references.citation: Theory Biosci. 2008 Jun;127(2):177-86
references.pmid: 18458976
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Jan 29;105(4):1232-7
references.pmid: 18227508
references.citation: Nature. 2005 Feb 3;433(7025):513-6
references.pmid: 15690039
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2013 Jan 16;280(1754):20122003
references.pmid: 23325772