Date:
November 25, 2015
Source:
Cell Press
Many
birds travel in flocks, sometimes migrating over thousands of miles. But how do
the birds decide who will lead the way? Researchers reporting in the Cell Press
journal Current Biology on November 25 now have some new insight
based on studies in homing pigeons. For pigeons, it seems, leadership is
largely a question of speed.
"This
changes our understanding of how the flocks are structured and why flocks of
this species have consistent leadership hierarchies," says Dora Biro of
the University of Oxford.
Previous
studies had shown that flock leadership is unrelated to social dominance.
Giving followers extra training flights doesn't promote them to a position of
leadership, either. The new findings offer an elegantly simple explanation for
the phenomenon of leadership in birds, with important implications for how spatial
knowledge is generated and retained in navigating flocks.
While
many birds travel in flocks, homing pigeons are domestic and more easily
studied than most. "We can control the composition of the flocks and the
starting points for their homeward journeys," says Benjamin Pettit, the
first author of the new study. "We also have a good understanding of their
individual spatial cognition, in particular how their homing routes develop
over repeated flights in the same area."
Recent
developments in sensor technology also make it possible to explore with
exquisite precision how pigeon flocks are coordinated. The latest GPS loggers
allow the researchers to track not only the birds' overall routes, but also the
sub-second time delays with which they react to each other while flying as a
flock.
No comments:
Post a Comment