Compound-V formations in shorebird flocks.

ABSTRACT: Animal groups have emergent properties that result from simple interactions among individuals. However, we know little about why animals adopt different interaction rules because of sparse sampling among species. Here, we identify an interaction rule that holds across single and mixed-species flocks of four migratory shorebird species spanning a seven-fold range of body masses. The rule, aligning with a one-wingspan lateral distance to nearest neighbors in the same horizontal plane, scales linearly with wingspan but is independent of nearest neighbor distance and neighbor species. This rule propagates outward to create a global flock structure that we term the compound-V formation. We propose that this formation represents an intermediary between the cluster flocks of starlings and the sim

SUBMITTER: Corcoran AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6548498 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature