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Amichay G, Li L, Nagy M, Couzin ID. Revealing the mechanism and function underlying pairwise temporal coupling in collective motion. Nat Commun 2024; 15:4356. [PMID: 38778073 PMCID: PMC11111445 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48458-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2023] [Accepted: 04/29/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Coordinated motion in animal groups has predominantly been studied with a focus on spatial interactions, such as how individuals position and orient themselves relative to one another. Temporal aspects have, by contrast, received much less attention. Here, by studying pairwise interactions in juvenile zebrafish (Danio rerio)-including using immersive volumetric virtual reality (VR) with which we can directly test models of social interactions in situ-we reveal that there exists a rhythmic out-of-phase (i.e., an alternating) temporal coordination dynamic. We find that reciprocal (bi-directional) feedback is both necessary and sufficient to explain this emergent coupling. Beyond a mechanistic understanding, we find, both from VR experiments and analysis of freely swimming pairs, that temporal coordination considerably improves spatial responsiveness, such as to changes in the direction of motion of a partner. Our findings highlight the synergistic role of spatial and temporal coupling in facilitating effective communication between individuals on the move.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guy Amichay
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
- Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
| | - Liang Li
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Máté Nagy
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
- MTA-ELTE Lendület Collective Behaviour Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
- ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Biological Physics, Budapest, Hungary.
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
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2
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Heins C, Millidge B, Da Costa L, Mann RP, Friston KJ, Couzin ID. Collective behavior from surprise minimization. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2320239121. [PMID: 38630721 PMCID: PMC11046639 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2320239121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/19/2024] Open
Abstract
Collective motion is ubiquitous in nature; groups of animals, such as fish, birds, and ungulates appear to move as a whole, exhibiting a rich behavioral repertoire that ranges from directed movement to milling to disordered swarming. Typically, such macroscopic patterns arise from decentralized, local interactions among constituent components (e.g., individual fish in a school). Preeminent models of this process describe individuals as self-propelled particles, subject to self-generated motion and "social forces" such as short-range repulsion and long-range attraction or alignment. However, organisms are not particles; they are probabilistic decision-makers. Here, we introduce an approach to modeling collective behavior based on active inference. This cognitive framework casts behavior as the consequence of a single imperative: to minimize surprise. We demonstrate that many empirically observed collective phenomena, including cohesion, milling, and directed motion, emerge naturally when considering behavior as driven by active Bayesian inference-without explicitly building behavioral rules or goals into individual agents. Furthermore, we show that active inference can recover and generalize the classical notion of social forces as agents attempt to suppress prediction errors that conflict with their expectations. By exploring the parameter space of the belief-based model, we reveal nontrivial relationships between the individual beliefs and group properties like polarization and the tendency to visit different collective states. We also explore how individual beliefs about uncertainty determine collective decision-making accuracy. Finally, we show how agents can update their generative model over time, resulting in groups that are collectively more sensitive to external fluctuations and encode information more robustly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Conor Heins
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, KonstanzD-78457, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, KonstanzD-78457, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, KonstanzD-78457, Germany
- VERSES Research Lab, Los Angeles, CA90016
| | - Beren Millidge
- Medical Research Council Brain Networks Dynamics Unit, University of Oxford, OxfordOX1 3TH, United Kingdom
| | - Lancelot Da Costa
- VERSES Research Lab, Los Angeles, CA90016
- Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, LondonSW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, LondonWC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Richard P. Mann
- Department of Statistics, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, LeedsLS2 9JT, United Kingdom
| | - Karl J. Friston
- VERSES Research Lab, Los Angeles, CA90016
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, LondonWC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, KonstanzD-78457, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, KonstanzD-78457, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, KonstanzD-78457, Germany
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3
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Chao LM, Jia L, Wang S, Liberzon A, Ravi S, Couzin ID, Li L. Tailbeat perturbations improve swimming efficiency by reducing the phase lag between body motion and the resulting fluid response. PNAS Nexus 2024; 3:pgae073. [PMID: 38487161 PMCID: PMC10939483 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2023] [Accepted: 02/02/2024] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
Understanding how animals swim efficiently and generate high thrust in complex fluid environments is of considerable interest to researchers in various fields, including biology, physics, and engineering. However, the influence of often-overlooked perturbations on swimming fish remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigate the propulsion generated by oscillating tailbeats with superimposed rhythmic perturbations of high frequency and low amplitude. We reveal, using a combination of experiments in a biomimetic fish-like robotic platform, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and theoretical analysis, that rhythmic perturbations can significantly increase both swimming efficiency and thrust production. The introduction of perturbations increases pressure-induced thrust, while reduced phase lag between body motion and the subsequent fluid dynamics response improves swimming efficiency. Moreover, our findings suggest that beneficial perturbations are sensitive to kinematic parameters, resolving previous conflicts regarding the effects of such perturbations. Our results highlight the potential benefits of introducing perturbations in propulsion generators, providing potential hypotheses for living systems and inspiring the design of artificial flapping-based propulsion systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li-Ming Chao
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
| | - Laibing Jia
- Department of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Marine Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0LZ, UK
| | - Siyuan Wang
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
| | - Alexander Liberzon
- School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
| | - Sridhar Ravi
- School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
| | - Liang Li
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany
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4
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Gorbonos D, Oberhauser FB, Costello LL, Günzel Y, Couzin-Fuchs E, Koger B, Couzin ID. An effective hydrodynamic description of marching locusts. Phys Biol 2024; 21:026004. [PMID: 38266294 DOI: 10.1088/1478-3975/ad2219] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/23/2023] [Accepted: 01/24/2024] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
A fundamental question in complex systems is how to relate interactions between individual components ('microscopic description') to the global properties of the system ('macroscopic description'). Furthermore, it is unclear whether such a macroscopic description exists and if such a description can capture large-scale properties. Here, we address the validity of a macroscopic description of a complex biological system using the collective motion of desert locusts as a canonical example. One of the world's most devastating insect plagues begins when flightless juvenile locusts form 'marching bands'. These bands display remarkable coordinated motion, moving through semiarid habitats in search of food. We investigated how well macroscopic physical models can describe the flow of locusts within a band. For this, we filmed locusts within marching bands during an outbreak in Kenya and automatically tracked all individuals passing through the camera frame. We first analyzed the spatial topology of nearest neighbors and found individuals to be isotropically distributed. Despite this apparent randomness, a local order was observed in regions of high density in the radial distribution function, akin to an ordered fluid. Furthermore, reconstructing individual locust trajectories revealed a highly aligned movement, consistent with the one-dimensional version of the Toner-Tu equations, a generalization of the Navier-Stokes equations for fluids, used to describe the equivalent macroscopic fluid properties of active particles. Using this effective Toner-Tu equation, which relates the gradient of the pressure to the acceleration, we show that the effective 'pressure' of locusts increases as a linear function of density in segments with the highest polarization (for which the one-dimensional approximation is most appropriate). Our study thus demonstrates an effective hydrodynamic description of flow dynamics in plague locust swarms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dan Gorbonos
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Felix B Oberhauser
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Luke L Costello
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Yannick Günzel
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Einat Couzin-Fuchs
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Benjamin Koger
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
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5
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Williams HJ, Sridhar VH, Hurme E, Gall GE, Borrego N, Finerty GE, Couzin ID, Galizia CG, Dominy NJ, Rowland HM, Hauber ME, Higham JP, Strandburg-Peshkin A, Melin AD. Sensory collectives in natural systems. eLife 2023; 12:e88028. [PMID: 38019274 PMCID: PMC10686622 DOI: 10.7554/elife.88028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Groups of animals inhabit vastly different sensory worlds, or umwelten, which shape fundamental aspects of their behaviour. Yet the sensory ecology of species is rarely incorporated into the emerging field of collective behaviour, which studies the movements, population-level behaviours, and emergent properties of animal groups. Here, we review the contributions of sensory ecology and collective behaviour to understanding how animals move and interact within the context of their social and physical environments. Our goal is to advance and bridge these two areas of inquiry and highlight the potential for their creative integration. To achieve this goal, we organise our review around the following themes: (1) identifying the promise of integrating collective behaviour and sensory ecology; (2) defining and exploring the concept of a 'sensory collective'; (3) considering the potential for sensory collectives to shape the evolution of sensory systems; (4) exploring examples from diverse taxa to illustrate neural circuits involved in sensing and collective behaviour; and (5) suggesting the need for creative conceptual and methodological advances to quantify 'sensescapes'. In the final section, (6) applications to biological conservation, we argue that these topics are timely, given the ongoing anthropogenic changes to sensory stimuli (e.g. via light, sound, and chemical pollution) which are anticipated to impact animal collectives and group-level behaviour and, in turn, ecosystem composition and function. Our synthesis seeks to provide a forward-looking perspective on how sensory ecologists and collective behaviourists can both learn from and inspire one another to advance our understanding of animal behaviour, ecology, adaptation, and evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah J Williams
- Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Vivek H Sridhar
- Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Edward Hurme
- Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Gabriella E Gall
- Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Zukunftskolleg, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | | | | | - Iain D Couzin
- Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - C Giovanni Galizia
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Zukunftskolleg, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Nathaniel J Dominy
- Zukunftskolleg, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth CollegeHanoverUnited States
| | - Hannah M Rowland
- Max Planck Research Group Predators and Toxic Prey, Max Planck Institute for Chemical EcologyJenaGermany
| | - Mark E Hauber
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana-ChampaignUnited States
| | - James P Higham
- Zukunftskolleg, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Department of Anthropology, New York UniversityNew YorkUnited States
| | - Ariana Strandburg-Peshkin
- Max Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Biology Department, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Amanda D Melin
- Zukunftskolleg, University of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of CalgaryCalgaryCanada
- Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of CalgaryCalgaryCanada
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6
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Jhawar J, Davidson JD, Weidenmüller A, Wild B, Dormagen DM, Landgraf T, Couzin ID, Smith ML. How honeybees respond to heat stress from the individual to colony level. J R Soc Interface 2023; 20:20230290. [PMID: 37848056 PMCID: PMC10581772 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2023.0290] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/18/2023] [Accepted: 09/22/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023] Open
Abstract
A honey bee colony functions as an integrated collective, with individuals coordinating their behaviour to adapt and respond to unexpected disturbances. Nest homeostasis is critical for colony function; when ambient temperatures increase, individuals switch to thermoregulatory roles to cool the nest, such as fanning and water collection. While prior work has focused on bees engaged in specific behaviours, less is known about how responses are coordinated at the colony level, and how previous tasks predict behavioural changes during a heat stress. Using BeesBook automated tracking, we follow thousands of individuals during an experimentally induced heat stress, and analyse their behavioural changes from the individual to colony level. We show that heat stress causes an overall increase in activity levels and a spatial reorganization of bees away from the brood area. Using a generalized framework to analyse individual behaviour, we find that individuals differ in their response to heat stress, which depends on their prior behaviour and correlates with age. Examining the correlation of behavioural metrics over time suggests that heat stress perturbation does not have a long-lasting effect on an individual's future behaviour. These results demonstrate how thousands of individuals within a colony change their behaviour to achieve a coordinated response to an environmental disturbance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jitesh Jhawar
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, 380009, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
| | - Jacob D. Davidson
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Anja Weidenmüller
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Benjamin Wild
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - David M. Dormagen
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Tim Landgraf
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Michael L. Smith
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, 36849 Auburn AL, USA
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7
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Nagy M, Naik H, Kano F, Carlson NV, Koblitz JC, Wikelski M, Couzin ID. SMART-BARN: Scalable multimodal arena for real-time tracking behavior of animals in large numbers. Sci Adv 2023; 9:eadf8068. [PMID: 37656798 PMCID: PMC10854427 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf8068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 08/01/2023] [Indexed: 09/03/2023]
Abstract
The SMART-BARN (scalable multimodal arena for real-time tracking behavior of animals in large numbers) achieves fast, robust acquisition of movement, behavior, communication, and interactions of animals in groups, within a large (14.7 meters by 6.6 meters by 3.8 meters), three-dimensional environment using multiple information channels. Behavior is measured from a wide range of taxa (insects, birds, mammals, etc.) and body size (from moths to humans) simultaneously. This system integrates multiple, concurrent measurement techniques including submillimeter precision and high-speed (300 hertz) motion capture, acoustic recording and localization, automated behavioral recognition (computer vision), and remote computer-controlled interactive units (e.g., automated feeders and animal-borne devices). The data streams are available in real time allowing highly controlled and behavior-dependent closed-loop experiments, while producing comprehensive datasets for offline analysis. The diverse capabilities of SMART-BARN are demonstrated through three challenging avian case studies, while highlighting its broad applicability to the fine-scale analysis of collective animal behavior across species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Máté Nagy
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- MTA-ELTE Lendület Collective Behavior Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
- MTA-ELTE Statistical and Biological Physics Research Group, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Biological Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Hemal Naik
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Ecology of Animal Societies, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Fumihiro Kano
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Nora V. Carlson
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science/Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan
| | - Jens C. Koblitz
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Martin Wikelski
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Migration, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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8
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Couzin ID, Couzin-Fuchs E. The chemical ecology of locust cannibalism. Science 2023; 380:454-455. [PMID: 37141343 DOI: 10.1126/science.adh5264] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/06/2023]
Abstract
An anticannibalistic signaling pathway offers a new understanding of locust swarm formation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Einat Couzin-Fuchs
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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9
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Sridhar VH, Davidson JD, Twomey CR, Sosna MMG, Nagy M, Couzin ID. Inferring social influence in animal groups across multiple timescales. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2023; 378:20220062. [PMID: 36802787 PMCID: PMC9939267 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Many animal behaviours exhibit complex temporal dynamics, suggesting there are multiple timescales at which they should be studied. However, researchers often focus on behaviours that occur over relatively restricted temporal scales, typically ones that are more accessible to human observation. The situation becomes even more complex when considering multiple animals interacting, where behavioural coupling can introduce new timescales of importance. Here, we present a technique to study the time-varying nature of social influence in mobile animal groups across multiple temporal scales. As case studies, we analyse golden shiner fish and homing pigeons, which move in different media. By analysing pairwise interactions among individuals, we show that predictive power of the factors affecting social influence depends on the timescale of analysis. Over short timescales the relative position of a neighbour best predicts its influence and the distribution of influence across group members is relatively linear, with a small slope. At longer timescales, however, both relative position and kinematics are found to predict influence, and nonlinearity in the influence distribution increases, with a small number of individuals being disproportionately influential. Our results demonstrate that different interpretations of social influence arise from analysing behaviour at different timescales, highlighting the importance of considering its multiscale nature. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Collective behaviour through time'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vivek H. Sridhar
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Department for the Ecology of Animal Societies, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78467 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Jacob D. Davidson
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Colin R. Twomey
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA,Mind Center for Outreach, Research, and Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Matthew M. G. Sosna
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Máté Nagy
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,MTA-ELTE Statistical and Biological Physics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest 1117, Hungary,MTA-ELTE ‘Lendület’ Collective Behaviour Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest 1117, Hungary,Department of Biological Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1A, Budapest 1117, Hungary
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
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10
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Couzin ID, Heins C. Emerging technologies for behavioral research in changing environments. Trends Ecol Evol 2023; 38:346-354. [PMID: 36509561 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2022.11.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2022] [Revised: 11/14/2022] [Accepted: 11/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The first response exhibited by animals to changing environments is typically behavioral. Behavior is thus central to predicting, and mitigating, the impacts that natural and anthropogenic environmental changes will have on populations and, consequently, ecosystems. Yet the inherently multiscale nature of behavior, as well as the complexities associated with inferring how animals perceive their world, and make decisions, has constrained the scope of behavioral research. Major technological advances in electronics and in machine learning, however, provide increasingly powerful means to see, analyze, and interpret behavior in its natural complexity. We argue that these disruptive technologies will foster new approaches that will allow us to move beyond quantitative descriptions and reveal the underlying generative processes that give rise to behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany; Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour & Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany.
| | - Conor Heins
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany; Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour & Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Germany
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11
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Couzin ID, Li L. The benefits of swimming together. eLife 2023; 12:86807. [PMID: 36947111 PMCID: PMC10032650 DOI: 10.7554/elife.86807] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/23/2023] Open
Abstract
When a fish beats its tail, it produces vortices in the water that other fish could take advantage of to save energy while swimming.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Liang Li
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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12
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Koger B, Deshpande A, Kerby JT, Graving JM, Costelloe BR, Couzin ID. Quantifying the movement, behaviour and environmental context of group-living animals using drones and computer vision. J Anim Ecol 2023. [PMID: 36945122 DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13904] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2022] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 03/23/2023]
Abstract
Methods for collecting animal behaviour data in natural environments, such as direct observation and biologging, are typically limited in spatiotemporal resolution, the number of animals that can be observed and information about animals' social and physical environments. Video imagery can capture rich information about animals and their environments, but image-based approaches are often impractical due to the challenges of processing large and complex multi-image datasets and transforming resulting data, such as animals' locations, into geographical coordinates. We demonstrate a new system for studying behaviour in the wild that uses drone-recorded videos and computer vision approaches to automatically track the location and body posture of free-roaming animals in georeferenced coordinates with high spatiotemporal resolution embedded in contemporaneous 3D landscape models of the surrounding area. We provide two worked examples in which we apply this approach to videos of gelada monkeys and multiple species of group-living African ungulates. We demonstrate how to track multiple animals simultaneously, classify individuals by species and age-sex class, estimate individuals' body postures (poses) and extract environmental features, including topography of the landscape and animal trails. By quantifying animal movement and posture while reconstructing a detailed 3D model of the landscape, our approach opens the door to studying the sensory ecology and decision-making of animals within their natural physical and social environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin Koger
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Adwait Deshpande
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Jeffrey T Kerby
- Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
- Neukom Institute for Computational Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
- Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Jacob M Graving
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Advanced Research Technology Unit, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Blair R Costelloe
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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13
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Kano F, Naik H, Keskin G, Couzin ID, Nagy M. Head-tracking of freely-behaving pigeons in a motion-capture system reveals the selective use of visual field regions. Sci Rep 2022; 12:19113. [PMID: 36352049 PMCID: PMC9646700 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-21931-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2022] [Accepted: 10/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Using a motion-capture system and custom head-calibration methods, we reconstructed the head-centric view of freely behaving pigeons and examined how they orient their head when presented with various types of attention-getting objects at various relative locations. Pigeons predominantly employed their retinal specializations to view a visual target, namely their foveas projecting laterally (at an azimuth of ± 75°) into the horizon, and their visually-sensitive "red areas" projecting broadly into the lower-frontal visual field. Pigeons used their foveas to view any distant object while they used their red areas to view a nearby object on the ground (< 50 cm). Pigeons "fixated" a visual target with their foveas; the intervals between head-saccades were longer when the visual target was viewed by birds' foveas compared to when it was viewed by any other region. Furthermore, pigeons showed a weak preference to use their right eye to examine small objects distinctive in detailed features and their left eye to view threat-related or social stimuli. Despite the known difficulty in identifying where a bird is attending, we show that it is possible to estimate the visual attention of freely-behaving birds by tracking the projections of their retinal specializations in their visual field with cutting-edge methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fumihiro Kano
- grid.9811.10000 0001 0658 7699Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464 Konstanz, Germany ,grid.507516.00000 0004 7661 536XDepartment of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Hemal Naik
- grid.507516.00000 0004 7661 536XDepartment of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany ,grid.507516.00000 0004 7661 536XDepartment of Ecology of Animal Societies, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany ,grid.5252.00000 0004 1936 973XComputer Aided Medical Procedures, Teschnische Universiät Munchen, Munich, Germany ,grid.9811.10000 0001 0658 7699Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Göksel Keskin
- grid.5018.c0000 0001 2149 4407MTA-ELTE Lendület Collective Behaviour Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary ,grid.5591.80000 0001 2294 6276Department of Biological Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- grid.9811.10000 0001 0658 7699Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, 78464 Konstanz, Germany ,grid.507516.00000 0004 7661 536XDepartment of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany ,grid.9811.10000 0001 0658 7699Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Máté Nagy
- grid.507516.00000 0004 7661 536XDepartment of Collective Behaviour, Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany ,grid.5018.c0000 0001 2149 4407MTA-ELTE Lendület Collective Behaviour Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary ,grid.5591.80000 0001 2294 6276Department of Biological Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
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14
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Smith ML, Davidson JD, Wild B, Dormagen DM, Landgraf T, Couzin ID. Behavioral variation across the days and lives of honey bees. iScience 2022; 25:104842. [PMID: 36039297 PMCID: PMC9418442 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104842] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2022] [Revised: 06/03/2022] [Accepted: 07/21/2022] [Indexed: 10/30/2022] Open
Abstract
In honey bee colonies, workers generally change tasks with age (from brood care, to nest work, to foraging). While these trends are well established, our understanding of how individuals distribute tasks during a day, and how individuals differ in their lifetime behavioral trajectories, is limited. Here, we use automated tracking to obtain long-term data on 4,100+ bees tracked continuously at 3 Hz, across an entire summer, and use behavioral metrics to compare behavior at different timescales. Considering single days, we describe how bees differ in space use, detection, and movement. Analyzing the behavior exhibited across their entire lives, we find consistent inter-individual differences in the movement characteristics of individuals. Bees also differ in how quickly they transition through behavioral space to ultimately become foragers, with fast-transitioning bees living the shortest lives. Our analysis framework provides a quantitative approach to describe individual behavioral variation within a colony from single days to entire lifetimes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael L Smith
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn AL 36849, USA
| | - Jacob D Davidson
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Benjamin Wild
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - David M Dormagen
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Tim Landgraf
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
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15
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Jolles JW, Sosna MMG, Mazué GPF, Twomey CR, Bak-Coleman J, Rubenstein DI, Couzin ID. Both prey and predator features predict the individual predation risk and survival of schooling prey. eLife 2022; 11:76344. [PMID: 35852826 PMCID: PMC9348852 DOI: 10.7554/elife.76344] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2021] [Accepted: 07/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Predation is one of the main evolutionary drivers of social grouping. While it is well appreciated that predation risk is likely not shared equally among individuals within groups, its detailed quantification has remained difficult due to the speed of attacks and the highly dynamic nature of collective prey response. Here, using high-resolution tracking of solitary predators (Northern pike) hunting schooling fish (golden shiners), we not only provide insights into predator decision-making, but show which key spatial and kinematic features of predator and prey predict the risk of individuals to be targeted and to survive attacks. We found that pike tended to stealthily approach the largest groups, and were often already inside the school when launching their attack, making prey in this frontal ‘strike zone’ the most vulnerable to be targeted. From the prey’s perspective, those fish in central locations, but relatively far from, and less aligned with, neighbours, were most likely to be targeted. While the majority of attacks were successful (70%), targeted individuals that did manage to avoid being captured exhibited a higher maximum acceleration response just before the attack and were further away from the pike‘s head. Our results highlight the crucial interplay between predators’ attack strategy and response of prey underlying the predation risk within mobile animal groups.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Matthew MG Sosna
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
| | | | | | | | | | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
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16
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Poel W, Daniels BC, Sosna MMG, Twomey CR, Leblanc SP, Couzin ID, Romanczuk P. Subcritical escape waves in schooling fish. Sci Adv 2022; 8:eabm6385. [PMID: 35731883 PMCID: PMC9217090 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm6385] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2021] [Accepted: 05/05/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Theoretical physics predicts optimal information processing in living systems near transitions (or pseudo-critical points) in their collective dynamics. However, focusing on potential benefits of proximity to a critical point, such as maximal sensitivity to perturbations and fast dissemination of information, commonly disregards possible costs of criticality in the noisy, dynamic environmental contexts of biological systems. Here, we find that startle cascades in fish schools are subcritical (not maximally responsive to environmental cues) and that distance to criticality decreases when perceived risk increases. Considering individuals' costs related to two detection error types, associated to both true and false alarms, we argue that being subcritical, and modulating distance to criticality, can be understood as managing a trade-off between sensitivity and robustness according to the riskiness and noisiness of the environment. Our work emphasizes the need for an individual-based and context-dependent perspective on criticality and collective information processing and motivates future questions about the evolutionary forces that brought about a particular trade-off.
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Affiliation(s)
- Winnie Poel
- Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, D-10099 Berlin, Germany
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, D-10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Bryan C. Daniels
- School of Complex Adaptive Systems, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
| | - Matthew M. G. Sosna
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Colin R. Twomey
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Simon P. Leblanc
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Blend Labs, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, D-78547 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, D-78547 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, D-78547 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Pawel Romanczuk
- Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, D-10099 Berlin, Germany
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, D-10115 Berlin, Germany
- Science of Intelligence, Research Cluster of Excellence, Marchstr. 23, D-10587 Berlin, Germany
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17
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Tuia D, Kellenberger B, Beery S, Costelloe BR, Zuffi S, Risse B, Mathis A, Mathis MW, van Langevelde F, Burghardt T, Kays R, Klinck H, Wikelski M, Couzin ID, van Horn G, Crofoot MC, Stewart CV, Berger-Wolf T. Perspectives in machine learning for wildlife conservation. Nat Commun 2022; 13:792. [PMID: 35140206 PMCID: PMC8828720 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-27980-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 73] [Impact Index Per Article: 36.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2021] [Accepted: 12/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Inexpensive and accessible sensors are accelerating data acquisition in animal ecology. These technologies hold great potential for large-scale ecological understanding, but are limited by current processing approaches which inefficiently distill data into relevant information. We argue that animal ecologists can capitalize on large datasets generated by modern sensors by combining machine learning approaches with domain knowledge. Incorporating machine learning into ecological workflows could improve inputs for ecological models and lead to integrated hybrid modeling tools. This approach will require close interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure the quality of novel approaches and train a new generation of data scientists in ecology and conservation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Devis Tuia
- School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Benjamin Kellenberger
- School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Sara Beery
- Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Blair R Costelloe
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Silvia Zuffi
- Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information Technologies, IMATI-CNR, Pavia, Italy
| | - Benjamin Risse
- Computer Science Department, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Alexander Mathis
- School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Mackenzie W Mathis
- School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
| | | | - Tilo Burghardt
- Computer Science Department, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Roland Kays
- Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
- North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, USA
| | - Holger Klinck
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Martin Wikelski
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Grant van Horn
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
| | - Margaret C Crofoot
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Charles V Stewart
- Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
| | - Tanya Berger-Wolf
- Translational Data Analytics Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
- Departments of Computer Science and Engineering; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
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18
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Bak-Coleman JB, Alfano M, Barfuss W, Bergstrom CT, Centeno MA, Couzin ID, Donges JF, Galesic M, Gersick AS, Jacquet J, Kao AB, Moran RE, Romanczuk P, Rubenstein DI, Tombak KJ, Van Bavel JJ, Weber EU. Stewardship of global collective behavior. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:e2025764118. [PMID: 34155097 PMCID: PMC8271675 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2025764118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 63] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Collective behavior provides a framework for understanding how the actions and properties of groups emerge from the way individuals generate and share information. In humans, information flows were initially shaped by natural selection yet are increasingly structured by emerging communication technologies. Our larger, more complex social networks now transfer high-fidelity information over vast distances at low cost. The digital age and the rise of social media have accelerated changes to our social systems, with poorly understood functional consequences. This gap in our knowledge represents a principal challenge to scientific progress, democracy, and actions to address global crises. We argue that the study of collective behavior must rise to a "crisis discipline" just as medicine, conservation, and climate science have, with a focus on providing actionable insight to policymakers and regulators for the stewardship of social systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph B Bak-Coleman
- Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195;
- eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
| | - Mark Alfano
- Ethics & Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands
- Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, Banyo Queensland 4014, Australia
| | - Wolfram Barfuss
- Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
- Tübingen AI Center, University of Tübingen, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
| | - Carl T Bergstrom
- Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
| | - Miguel A Centeno
- Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, 78315 Radolfzell am Bodensee, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Jonathan F Donges
- Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
- Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, 11419 Stockholm, Sweden
| | | | - Andrew S Gersick
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Jennifer Jacquet
- Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY 10012
| | | | - Rachel E Moran
- Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
| | - Pawel Romanczuk
- Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Daniel I Rubenstein
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Kaia J Tombak
- Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, NY 10065
| | - Jay J Van Bavel
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003
| | - Elke U Weber
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
- Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
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19
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Davidson JD, Sosna MMG, Twomey CR, Sridhar VH, Leblanc SP, Couzin ID. Collective detection based on visual information in animal groups. J R Soc Interface 2021; 18:20210142. [PMID: 34229461 PMCID: PMC8261228 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2021.0142] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2021] [Accepted: 06/10/2021] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
We investigate key principles underlying individual, and collective, visual detection of stimuli, and how this relates to the internal structure of groups. While the individual and collective detection principles are generally applicable, we employ a model experimental system of schooling golden shiner fish (Notemigonus crysoleucas) to relate theory directly to empirical data, using computational reconstruction of the visual fields of all individuals. This reveals how the external visual information available to each group member depends on the number of individuals in the group, the position within the group, and the location of the external visually detectable stimulus. We find that in small groups, individuals have detection capability in nearly all directions, while in large groups, occlusion by neighbours causes detection capability to vary with position within the group. To understand the principles that drive detection in groups, we formulate a simple, and generally applicable, model that captures how visual detection properties emerge due to geometric scaling of the space occupied by the group and occlusion caused by neighbours. We employ these insights to discuss principles that extend beyond our specific system, such as how collective detection depends on individual body shape, and the size and structure of the group.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob D. Davidson
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Matthew M. G. Sosna
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Colin R. Twomey
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Mind Center for Outreach, Research, and Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Vivek H. Sridhar
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Simon P. Leblanc
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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20
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Li L, Ravi S, Xie G, Couzin ID. Using a robotic platform to study the influence of relative tailbeat phase on the energetic costs of side-by-side swimming in fish. Proc Math Phys Eng Sci 2021; 477:20200810. [PMID: 35153556 PMCID: PMC8300603 DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2020.0810] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2020] [Accepted: 04/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
A potential benefit of swimming together in coordinated schools is to allow fish to extract energy from vortices shed by their neighbours, thus reducing the costs of locomotion. This hypothesis has been very hard to test in real fish schools, and it has proven very difficult to replicate the complex hydrodynamics at relevant Reynolds numbers using computational simulations. A complementary approach, and the one we adopt here, is to develop and analyse the performance of biomimetic autonomous robotic models that capture the salient kinematics of fish-like swimming, and also interact via hydrodynamic forces. We developed bio-inspired robotic fish which perform sub-carangiform locomotion, and measured the speed and power consumption of robots when swimming in isolation and when swimming side-by-side in pairs. We found that swimming side-by-side confers a substantial increase in both the speed and efficiency of locomotion of both fish regardless of the relative phase relationship of their body undulations. However, we also find that each individual can slightly increase their own power efficiency if they change relative tailbeat phase by approximately 0.25π with respect to, and at the energetic expense of, their neighbour. This suggests the possibility of a competitive game-theoretic dynamic between individuals in swimming groups. Our results also demonstrate the potential applicability of our platform, and provide a natural connection between the biology and robotics of collective motion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liang Li
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Sridhar Ravi
- School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales - Canberra, Australia
| | - Guangming Xie
- State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.,Institute of Ocean Research, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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21
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Walter T, Couzin ID. TRex, a fast multi-animal tracking system with markerless identification, and 2D estimation of posture and visual fields. eLife 2021; 10:64000. [PMID: 33634789 PMCID: PMC8096434 DOI: 10.7554/elife.64000] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2020] [Accepted: 02/25/2021] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Automated visual tracking of animals is rapidly becoming an indispensable tool for the study of behavior. It offers a quantitative methodology by which organisms’ sensing and decision-making can be studied in a wide range of ecological contexts. Despite this, existing solutions tend to be challenging to deploy in practice, especially when considering long and/or high-resolution video-streams. Here, we present TRex, a fast and easy-to-use solution for tracking a large number of individuals simultaneously using background-subtraction with real-time (60 Hz) tracking performance for up to approximately 256 individuals and estimates 2D visual-fields, outlines, and head/rear of bilateral animals, both in open and closed-loop contexts. Additionally, TRex offers highly accurate, deep-learning-based visual identification of up to approximately 100 unmarked individuals, where it is between 2.5 and 46.7 times faster, and requires 2–10 times less memory, than comparable software (with relative performance increasing for more organisms/longer videos) and provides interactive data-exploration within an intuitive, platform-independent graphical user-interface.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tristan Walter
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Radolfzell, Germany.,Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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22
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Wild B, Dormagen DM, Zachariae A, Smith ML, Traynor KS, Brockmann D, Couzin ID, Landgraf T. Social networks predict the life and death of honey bees. Nat Commun 2021; 12:1110. [PMID: 33597518 PMCID: PMC7889932 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21212-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2020] [Accepted: 01/19/2021] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
In complex societies, individuals' roles are reflected by interactions with other conspecifics. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) generally change tasks as they age, but developmental trajectories of individuals can vary drastically due to physiological and environmental factors. We introduce a succinct descriptor of an individual's social network that can be obtained without interfering with the colony. This 'network age' accurately predicts task allocation, survival, activity patterns, and future behavior. We analyze developmental trajectories of multiple cohorts of individuals in a natural setting and identify distinct developmental pathways and critical life changes. Our findings suggest a high stability in task allocation on an individual level. We show that our method is versatile and can extract different properties from social networks, opening up a broad range of future studies. Our approach highlights the relationship of social interactions and individual traits, and provides a scalable technique for understanding how complex social systems function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin Wild
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
| | - David M Dormagen
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | | | - Michael L Smith
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Kirsten S Traynor
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Global Biosocial Complexity Initiative, Arizona State University, Tempe, FL, USA
| | - Dirk Brockmann
- Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
- Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Tim Landgraf
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
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23
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Nagy M, Horicsányi A, Kubinyi E, Couzin ID, Vásárhelyi G, Flack A, Vicsek T. Synergistic Benefits of Group Search in Rats. Curr Biol 2020; 30:4733-4738.e4. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.079] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2020] [Revised: 07/21/2020] [Accepted: 08/24/2020] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
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24
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Hugo H, Hermes MG, Garcete‐Barrett BR, Couzin ID. First evidence of wasp brood development inside active nests of a termite with the description of a previously unknown potter wasp species. Ecol Evol 2020; 10:12663-12674. [PMID: 33304483 PMCID: PMC7713954 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.6872] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2020] [Revised: 09/02/2020] [Accepted: 09/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Potter wasps (Vespidae: Eumeninae) are known to exhibit not only sophisticated preying strategies but also a remarkable ability to manipulate clay during nest building. Due to a mixture of plasticity in building behavior and flexibility in substrate preferences during nest building, the group has been reported nesting in a variety of places, including decaying nests abandoned by termite species. Yet, evidence of wasps nesting inside senescent termite mounds is poorly reported, and to date, accounts confirming their presence inside active colonies of termites are absent. Here, we address a novel intriguing association between two species from the Brazilian Cerrado: a previously unknown potter wasp (nest invader) and a termite species (nest builder). Besides scientifically describing Montezumia termitophila sp. nov. (Vespidae: Eumeninae), named after its association with the termite Constrictotermes cyphergaster (Silvestri, 1901) (Termitidae: Nasutitermitinae), we provide preliminary information about the new species' bionomics by including (a) a hypothetical life cycle based on the evidence we collected and (b) a footage showing the first interaction between a recently ecloded wasp and a group of termites. In doing so, we attempt to provoke relevant discussions in the field and, perhaps, motivate further studies with the group. Finally, we describe a solution to efficiently detect and sample termitophilous species from termite nests, an intrinsic yet challenging task of any studies dealing with such a cryptic biological system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helder Hugo
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | | | - Bolívar R. Garcete‐Barrett
- Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del ParaguaySan LorenzoParaguay
- Department of BiologyUniversidad Nacional de AsunciónSan LorenzoParaguay
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
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25
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Papageorgiou D, Christensen C, Gall GEC, Klarevas-Irby JA, Nyaguthii B, Couzin ID, Farine DR. The multilevel society of a small-brained bird. Curr Biol 2020; 29:R1120-R1121. [PMID: 31689393 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.09.072] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Animal societies can be organised in multiple hierarchical tiers [1]. Such multilevel societies, where stable groups move together through the landscape, overlapping and associating preferentially with specific other groups, are thought to represent one of the most complex forms of social structure in vertebrates. For example, hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas) live in units consisting of one male and one or several females, or of several solitary males, that group into clans. These clans then come together with solitary bachelor males to form larger bands [2]. This social structure means that individuals have to track many different types of relationships at the same time [1,3]. Here, we provide detailed quantitative evidence for the presence of a multilevel society in a small-brained bird, the vulturine guineafowl (Acryllium vulturinum). We demonstrate that this species lives in large, multi-male, multi-female groups that associate preferentially with specific other groups, both during the day and at night-time communal roosts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danai Papageorgiou
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Collective Behavior, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Department of Biology, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; Kenya Wildlife Service, P.O. Box 40241-001000, Nairobi, Kenya; Department of Ornithology, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658-001000, Nairobi, Kenya.
| | - Charlotte Christensen
- Swansea University, Department of Biosciences, Wallace Building, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK
| | - Gabriella E C Gall
- University of Zurich, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich, 8057, Switzerland
| | - James A Klarevas-Irby
- University of Konstanz, Department of Biology, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; Kenya Wildlife Service, P.O. Box 40241-001000, Nairobi, Kenya; Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Migration, Am Obstberg 1, Radolfzell, 78315, Germany
| | - Brendah Nyaguthii
- University of Eldoret, School of Natural Resource Management, Department of Wildlife, 1125-30100 Eldoret, Kenya; Mpala Research Center, P.O. Box 92, Nanyuki, 10400, Kenya
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Collective Behavior, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Department of Biology, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany
| | - Damien R Farine
- Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Collective Behavior, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Department of Biology, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; University of Konstanz, Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany; Department of Ornithology, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658-001000, Nairobi, Kenya; Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK.
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26
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Jolles JW, Mazué GPF, Davidson J, Behrmann-Godel J, Couzin ID. Schistocephalus parasite infection alters sticklebacks' movement ability and thereby shapes social interactions. Sci Rep 2020; 10:12282. [PMID: 32703965 PMCID: PMC7378215 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-69057-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2020] [Accepted: 07/01/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Parasitism is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. Although many fundamental aspects of host-parasite relationships have been unravelled, few studies have systematically investigated how parasites affect organismal movement. Here we combine behavioural experiments of Schistocephalus solidus infected sticklebacks with individual-based simulations to understand how parasitism affects individual movement ability and thereby shapes social interaction patterns. High-resolution tracking revealed that infected fish swam, accelerated, and turned more slowly than did non-infected fish, and tended to be more predictable in their movements. Importantly, the strength of these effects increased with increasing parasite load (proportion of body weight), with more heavily infected fish showing larger changes and impairments in behaviour. When grouped, pairs of infected fish moved more slowly, were less cohesive, less aligned, and less temporally coordinated than non-infected pairs, and mixed pairs were primarily led by the non-infected fish. These social patterns also emerged in simulations of self-organised groups composed of individuals differing similarly in speed and turning tendency, suggesting infection-induced changes in mobility and manoeuvrability may drive collective outcomes. Together, our results demonstrate how infection with a complex life-cycle parasite affects the movement ability of individuals and how this in turn shapes social interaction patterns, providing important mechanistic insights into the effects of parasites on host movement dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jolle W Jolles
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.
- Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
| | - Geoffrey P F Mazué
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Jacob Davidson
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | | | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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27
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Abstract
The core idea in an XR (VR/MR/AR) application is to digitally stimulate one or more sensory systems (e.g. visual, auditory, olfactory) of the human user in an interactive way to achieve an immersive experience. Since the early 2000s biologists have been using Virtual Environments (VE) to investigate the mechanisms of behavior in non-human animals including insects, fish, and mammals. VEs have become reliable tools for studying vision, cognition, and sensory-motor control in animals. In turn, the knowledge gained from studying such behaviors can be harnessed by researchers designing biologically inspired robots, smart sensors, and rnulti-agent artificial intelligence. VE for animals is becoming a widely used application of XR technology but such applications have not previously been reported in the technical literature related to XR. Biologists and computer scientists can benefit greatly from deepening interdisciplinary research in this emerging field and together we can develop new methods for conducting fundamental research in behavioral sciences and engineering. To support our argument we present this review which provides an overview of animal behavior experiments conducted in virtual environments.
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28
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Abstract
Many animal groups exhibit signatures of persistent internal modular structure, whereby individuals consistently interact with certain groupmates more than others. In such groups, information relevant to a collective decision may spread unevenly through the group, but how this impacts the quality of the resulting decision is not well understood. Here, we explicitly model modularity within animal groups and examine how it affects the amount of information represented in collective decisions, as well as the accuracy of those decisions. We find that modular structure necessarily causes a loss of information, effectively silencing the input from a fraction of the group. However, the effect of this information loss on collective accuracy depends on the informational environment in which the decision is made. In simple environments, the information loss is detrimental to collective accuracy. By contrast, in complex environments, modularity tends to improve accuracy. This is because small group sizes typically maximize collective accuracy in such environments, and modular structure allows a large group to behave like a smaller group (in terms of its decision-making). These results suggest that in naturalistic environments containing correlated information, large animal groups may be able to exploit modular structure to improve decision accuracy while retaining other benefits of large group size. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Liquid brains, solid brains: How distributed cognitive architectures process information’.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Iain D Couzin
- 2 Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology , 78464 Konstanz , Germany.,3 Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz , 78457 Konstanz , Germany.,4 Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz , 78457 Konstanz , Germany
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29
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Tang W, Davidson JD, Zhang G, Conen KE, Fang J, Serluca F, Li J, Xiong X, Coble M, Tsai T, Molind G, Fawcett CH, Sanchez E, Zhu P, Couzin ID, Fishman MC. Genetic Control of Collective Behavior in Zebrafish. iScience 2020; 23:100942. [PMID: 32179471 PMCID: PMC7068127 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.100942] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2019] [Revised: 01/17/2020] [Accepted: 02/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Many animals, including humans, have evolved to live and move in groups. In humans, disrupted social interactions are a fundamental feature of many psychiatric disorders. However, we know little about how genes regulate social behavior. Zebrafish may serve as a powerful model to explore this question. By comparing the behavior of wild-type fish with 90 mutant lines, we show that mutations of genes associated with human psychiatric disorders can alter the collective behavior of adult zebrafish. We identify three categories of behavioral variation across mutants: "scattered," in which fish show reduced cohesion; "coordinated," in which fish swim more in aligned schools; and "huddled," in which fish form dense but disordered groups. Changes in individual interaction rules can explain these differences. This work demonstrates how emergent patterns in animal groups can be altered by genetic changes in individuals and establishes a framework for understanding the fundamentals of social information processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenlong Tang
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Jacob D Davidson
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany; Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Guoqiang Zhang
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Katherine E Conen
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany; Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Jian Fang
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Fabrizio Serluca
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Jingyao Li
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Xiaorui Xiong
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Matthew Coble
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Tingwei Tsai
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Gregory Molind
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Caroline H Fawcett
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Ellen Sanchez
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Peixin Zhu
- Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 181 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany; Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior, University of Konstanz, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätstraße 10, 78764 Konstanz, Germany.
| | - Mark C Fishman
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, 7 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
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30
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Abstract
The need to make fast decisions under risky and uncertain conditions is a widespread problem in the natural world. While there has been extensive work on how individual organisms dynamically modify their behavior to respond appropriately to changing environmental conditions (and how this is encoded in the brain), we know remarkably little about the corresponding aspects of collective information processing in animal groups. For example, many groups appear to show increased "sensitivity" in the presence of perceived threat, as evidenced by the increased frequency and magnitude of repeated cascading waves of behavioral change often observed in fish schools and bird flocks under such circumstances. How such context-dependent changes in collective sensitivity are mediated, however, is unknown. Here we address this question using schooling fish as a model system, focusing on 2 nonexclusive hypotheses: 1) that changes in collective responsiveness result from changes in how individuals respond to social cues (i.e., changes to the properties of the "nodes" in the social network), and 2) that they result from changes made to the structural connectivity of the network itself (i.e., the computation is encoded in the "edges" of the network). We find that despite the fact that perceived risk increases the probability for individuals to initiate an alarm, the context-dependent change in collective sensitivity predominantly results not from changes in how individuals respond to social cues, but instead from how individuals modify the spatial structure, and correspondingly the topology of the network of interactions, within the group. Risk is thus encoded as a collective property, emphasizing that in group-living species individual fitness can depend strongly on coupling between scales of behavioral organization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew M G Sosna
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
| | - Colin R Twomey
- Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104
| | - Joseph Bak-Coleman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
| | - Winnie Poel
- Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, D-10099 Berlin, Germany
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, D-10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Bryan C Daniels
- Arizona State University-Santa Fe Institute (ASU-SFI) Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287
| | - Pawel Romanczuk
- Institute for Theoretical Biology, Department of Biology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, D-10099 Berlin, Germany
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, D-10115 Berlin, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, D-78547 Konstanz, Germany;
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, D-78547 Konstanz, Germany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, D-78547 Konstanz, Germany
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31
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Graving JM, Chae D, Naik H, Li L, Koger B, Costelloe BR, Couzin ID. DeepPoseKit, a software toolkit for fast and robust animal pose estimation using deep learning. eLife 2019; 8:e47994. [PMID: 31570119 PMCID: PMC6897514 DOI: 10.7554/elife.47994;select dbms_pipe.receive_message(chr(79)||chr(103)||chr(106)||chr(65),5) from dual--] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Quantitative behavioral measurements are important for answering questions across scientific disciplines-from neuroscience to ecology. State-of-the-art deep-learning methods offer major advances in data quality and detail by allowing researchers to automatically estimate locations of an animal's body parts directly from images or videos. However, currently available animal pose estimation methods have limitations in speed and robustness. Here, we introduce a new easy-to-use software toolkit, DeepPoseKit, that addresses these problems using an efficient multi-scale deep-learning model, called Stacked DenseNet, and a fast GPU-based peak-detection algorithm for estimating keypoint locations with subpixel precision. These advances improve processing speed >2x with no loss in accuracy compared to currently available methods. We demonstrate the versatility of our methods with multiple challenging animal pose estimation tasks in laboratory and field settings-including groups of interacting individuals. Our work reduces barriers to using advanced tools for measuring behavior and has broad applicability across the behavioral sciences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob M Graving
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Daniel Chae
- Department of Computer SciencePrinceton UniversityPrincetonUnited States
| | - Hemal Naik
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Chair for Computer Aided Medical ProceduresTechnische Universität MünchenMunichGermany
| | - Liang Li
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Benjamin Koger
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Blair R Costelloe
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
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Graving JM, Chae D, Naik H, Li L, Koger B, Costelloe BR, Couzin ID. DeepPoseKit, a software toolkit for fast and robust animal pose estimation using deep learning. eLife 2019; 8:e47994. [PMID: 31570119 PMCID: PMC6897514 DOI: 10.7554/elife.47994;select dbms_pipe.receive_message(chr(79)||chr(103)||chr(106)||chr(65),0) from dual--] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Quantitative behavioral measurements are important for answering questions across scientific disciplines-from neuroscience to ecology. State-of-the-art deep-learning methods offer major advances in data quality and detail by allowing researchers to automatically estimate locations of an animal's body parts directly from images or videos. However, currently available animal pose estimation methods have limitations in speed and robustness. Here, we introduce a new easy-to-use software toolkit, DeepPoseKit, that addresses these problems using an efficient multi-scale deep-learning model, called Stacked DenseNet, and a fast GPU-based peak-detection algorithm for estimating keypoint locations with subpixel precision. These advances improve processing speed >2x with no loss in accuracy compared to currently available methods. We demonstrate the versatility of our methods with multiple challenging animal pose estimation tasks in laboratory and field settings-including groups of interacting individuals. Our work reduces barriers to using advanced tools for measuring behavior and has broad applicability across the behavioral sciences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob M Graving
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Daniel Chae
- Department of Computer SciencePrinceton UniversityPrincetonUnited States
| | - Hemal Naik
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Chair for Computer Aided Medical ProceduresTechnische Universität MünchenMunichGermany
| | - Liang Li
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Benjamin Koger
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Blair R Costelloe
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
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33
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Graving JM, Chae D, Naik H, Li L, Koger B, Costelloe BR, Couzin ID. DeepPoseKit, a software toolkit for fast and robust animal pose estimation using deep learning. eLife 2019; 8:e47994. [PMID: 31570119 PMCID: PMC6897514 DOI: 10.7554/elife.47994] [Citation(s) in RCA: 199] [Impact Index Per Article: 39.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2019] [Accepted: 09/18/2019] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Quantitative behavioral measurements are important for answering questions across scientific disciplines-from neuroscience to ecology. State-of-the-art deep-learning methods offer major advances in data quality and detail by allowing researchers to automatically estimate locations of an animal's body parts directly from images or videos. However, currently available animal pose estimation methods have limitations in speed and robustness. Here, we introduce a new easy-to-use software toolkit, DeepPoseKit, that addresses these problems using an efficient multi-scale deep-learning model, called Stacked DenseNet, and a fast GPU-based peak-detection algorithm for estimating keypoint locations with subpixel precision. These advances improve processing speed >2x with no loss in accuracy compared to currently available methods. We demonstrate the versatility of our methods with multiple challenging animal pose estimation tasks in laboratory and field settings-including groups of interacting individuals. Our work reduces barriers to using advanced tools for measuring behavior and has broad applicability across the behavioral sciences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob M Graving
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Daniel Chae
- Department of Computer SciencePrinceton UniversityPrincetonUnited States
| | - Hemal Naik
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Chair for Computer Aided Medical ProceduresTechnische Universität MünchenMunichGermany
| | - Liang Li
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Benjamin Koger
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Blair R Costelloe
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective BehaviourMax Planck Institute of Animal BehaviorKonstanzGermany
- Department of BiologyUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
- Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective BehaviourUniversity of KonstanzKonstanzGermany
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Kao AB, Berdahl AM, Hartnett AT, Lutz MJ, Bak-Coleman JB, Ioannou CC, Giam X, Couzin ID. Counteracting estimation bias and social influence to improve the wisdom of crowds. J R Soc Interface 2019; 15:rsif.2018.0130. [PMID: 29669894 DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2018.0130] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2018] [Accepted: 03/26/2018] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Aggregating multiple non-expert opinions into a collective estimate can improve accuracy across many contexts. However, two sources of error can diminish collective wisdom: individual estimation biases and information sharing between individuals. Here, we measure individual biases and social influence rules in multiple experiments involving hundreds of individuals performing a classic numerosity estimation task. We first investigate how existing aggregation methods, such as calculating the arithmetic mean or the median, are influenced by these sources of error. We show that the mean tends to overestimate, and the median underestimate, the true value for a wide range of numerosities. Quantifying estimation bias, and mapping individual bias to collective bias, allows us to develop and validate three new aggregation measures that effectively counter sources of collective estimation error. In addition, we present results from a further experiment that quantifies the social influence rules that individuals employ when incorporating personal estimates with social information. We show that the corrected mean is remarkably robust to social influence, retaining high accuracy in the presence or absence of social influence, across numerosities and across different methods for averaging social information. Using knowledge of estimation biases and social influence rules may therefore be an inexpensive and general strategy to improve the wisdom of crowds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Albert B Kao
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Andrew M Berdahl
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA.,School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | | | - Matthew J Lutz
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Joseph B Bak-Coleman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | | | - Xingli Giam
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany.,Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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35
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Berdahl AM, Kao AB, Flack A, Westley PAH, Codling EA, Couzin ID, Dell AI, Biro D. Collective animal navigation and migratory culture: from theoretical models to empirical evidence. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0009. [PMID: 29581394 PMCID: PMC5882979 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 96] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/01/2017] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Animals often travel in groups, and their navigational decisions can be influenced by social interactions. Both theory and empirical observations suggest that such collective navigation can result in individuals improving their ability to find their way and could be one of the key benefits of sociality for these species. Here, we provide an overview of the potential mechanisms underlying collective navigation, review the known, and supposed, empirical evidence for such behaviour and highlight interesting directions for future research. We further explore how both social and collective learning during group navigation could lead to the accumulation of knowledge at the population level, resulting in the emergence of migratory culture. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Collective movement ecology’.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew M Berdahl
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA .,School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Albert B Kao
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Andrea Flack
- Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Peter A H Westley
- Department of Fisheries, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA
| | - Edward A Codling
- Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany.,Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Anthony I Dell
- National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, Alton, IL 62024, USA.,Department of Biology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO 63130, USA
| | - Dora Biro
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
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Nagy M, Couzin ID, Fiedler W, Wikelski M, Flack A. Synchronization, coordination and collective sensing during thermalling flight of freely migrating white storks. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0011. [PMID: 29581396 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/25/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Exploring how flocks of soaring migrants manage to achieve and maintain coordination while exploiting thermal updrafts is important for understanding how collective movements can enhance the sensing of the surrounding environment. Here we examined the structural organization of a group of circling white storks (Ciconia ciconia) throughout their migratory journey from Germany to Spain. We analysed individual high-resolution GPS trajectories of storks during circling events, and evaluated each bird's flight behaviour in relation to its flock members. Within the flock, we identified subgroups that synchronize their movements and coordinate switches in their circling direction within thermals. These switches in direction can be initiated by any individual of the subgroup, irrespective of how advanced its relative vertical position is, and occur at specific horizontal locations within the thermal allowing the storks to remain within the thermal. Using the motion of all flock members, we were able to examine the dynamic variation of airflow within the thermals and to determine the specific environmental conditions surrounding the flock. With an increasing amount of high-resolution GPS tracking, we may soon be able to use these animals as distributed sensors providing us with a new means to obtain a detailed knowledge of our environment.This article is part of the theme issue 'Collective movement ecology'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Máté Nagy
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany .,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany.,MTA-ELTE Statistical and Biological Physics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Wolfgang Fiedler
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany
| | - Martin Wikelski
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany
| | - Andrea Flack
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany .,Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany
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37
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Torney CJ, Hopcraft JGC, Morrison TA, Couzin ID, Levin SA. From single steps to mass migration: the problem of scale in the movement ecology of the Serengeti wildebeest. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0012. [PMID: 29581397 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/24/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
A central question in ecology is how to link processes that occur over different scales. The daily interactions of individual organisms ultimately determine community dynamics, population fluctuations and the functioning of entire ecosystems. Observations of these multiscale ecological processes are constrained by various technological, biological or logistical issues, and there are often vast discrepancies between the scale at which observation is possible and the scale of the question of interest. Animal movement is characterized by processes that act over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Second-by-second decisions accumulate to produce annual movement patterns. Individuals influence, and are influenced by, collective movement decisions, which then govern the spatial distribution of populations and the connectivity of meta-populations. While the field of movement ecology is experiencing unprecedented growth in the availability of movement data, there remain challenges in integrating observations with questions of ecological interest. In this article, we present the major challenges of addressing these issues within the context of the Serengeti wildebeest migration, a keystone ecological phenomena that crosses multiple scales of space, time and biological complexity.This article is part of the theme issue 'Collective movement ecology'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin J Torney
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8SQ, UK
| | - J Grant C Hopcraft
- Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
| | - Thomas A Morrison
- Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.,Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Simon A Levin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
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Flack A, Nagy M, Fiedler W, Couzin ID, Wikelski M. From local collective behavior to global migratory patterns in white storks. Science 2018; 360:911-914. [PMID: 29798883 DOI: 10.1126/science.aap7781] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2017] [Accepted: 04/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Soaring migrant birds exploit columns of rising air (thermals) to cover large distances with minimal energy. Using social information while locating thermals may benefit such birds, but examining collective movements in wild migrants has been a major challenge for researchers. We investigated the group movements of a flock of 27 naturally migrating juvenile white storks by using high-resolution GPS and accelerometers. Analyzing individual and group movements on multiple scales revealed that a small number of leaders navigated to and explored thermals, whereas followers benefited from their movements. Despite this benefit, followers often left thermals earlier and at lower height, and consequently they had to flap considerably more. Followers also migrated less far annually than did leaders. We provide insights into the interactions between freely flying social migrants and the costs and benefits of collective movement in natural populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Flack
- Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany. .,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Máté Nagy
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany. .,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany.,MTA-ELTE Statistical and Biological Physics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Wolfgang Fiedler
- Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Martin Wikelski
- Department of Migration and Immuno-Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany.,Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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39
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Abstract
Collective decision-making regarding direction of travel is observed during natural motion of animal and cellular groups. This phenomenon is exemplified, in the simplest case, by a group that contains two informed subgroups that hold conflicting preferred directions of motion. Under such circumstances, simulations, subsequently supported by experimental data with birds and primates, have demonstrated that the resulting motion is either towards a compromise direction or towards one of the preferred targets (even when the two subgroups are equal in size). However, the nature of this transition is not well understood. We present a theoretical study that combines simulations and a spin model for mobile animal groups, the latter providing an equilibrium representation, and exact solution in the thermodynamic limit. This allows us to identify the nature of this transition at a critical angular difference between the two preferred directions: in both flocking and spin models the transition coincides with the change in the group dynamics from Brownian to persistent collective motion. The groups undergo this transition as the number of uninformed individuals (those in the group that do not exhibit a directional preference) increases, which acts as an inverse of the temperature (noise) of the spin model. When the two informed subgroups are not equal in size, there is a tendency for the group to reach the target preferred by the larger subgroup. We find that the spin model captures effectively the essence of the collective decision-making transition and allows us to reveal a noise-dependent trade-off between the decision-making speed and the ability to achieve majority (democratic) consensus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Itai Pinkoviezky
- Departments of Physics and Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78457 Konstanz, Germany and Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Nir S Gov
- Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
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Stowers JR, Hofbauer M, Bastien R, Griessner J, Higgins P, Farooqui S, Fischer RM, Nowikovsky K, Haubensak W, Couzin ID, Tessmar-Raible K, Straw AD. Virtual reality for freely moving animals. Nat Methods 2017; 14:995-1002. [PMID: 28825703 PMCID: PMC6485657 DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.4399] [Citation(s) in RCA: 132] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2016] [Accepted: 07/06/2017] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Standard animal behavior paradigms incompletely mimic nature and thus limit our understanding of behavior and brain function. Virtual reality (VR) can help, but it poses challenges. Typical VR systems require movement restrictions but disrupt sensorimotor experience, causing neuronal and behavioral alterations. We report the development of FreemoVR, a VR system for freely moving animals. We validate immersive VR for mice, flies, and zebrafish. FreemoVR allows instant, disruption-free environmental reconfigurations and interactions between real organisms and computer-controlled agents. Using the FreemoVR platform, we established a height-aversion assay in mice and studied visuomotor effects in Drosophila and zebrafish. Furthermore, by photorealistically mimicking zebrafish we discovered that effective social influence depends on a prospective leader balancing its internally preferred directional choice with social interaction. FreemoVR technology facilitates detailed investigations into neural function and behavior through the precise manipulation of sensorimotor feedback loops in unrestrained animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- John R. Stowers
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
- loopbio gmbh, Kritzendorf, Austria
| | - Maximilian Hofbauer
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
- loopbio gmbh, Kritzendorf, Austria
- Max F. Perutz Laboratories, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Research Platform “Rhythms of Life”, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Renaud Bastien
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
- Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz 78457, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Johannes Griessner
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
| | - Peter Higgins
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
| | - Sarfarazhussain Farooqui
- Max F. Perutz Laboratories, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Research Platform “Rhythms of Life”, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Medizinische Universität Wien, Dept. for Internal Medicine I, 1090 Wien, Austria
| | - Ruth M. Fischer
- Max F. Perutz Laboratories, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Karin Nowikovsky
- Medizinische Universität Wien, Dept. for Internal Medicine I, 1090 Wien, Austria
| | - Wulf Haubensak
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
| | - Iain D. Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
- Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz 78457, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Kristin Tessmar-Raible
- Max F. Perutz Laboratories, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Research Platform “Rhythms of Life”, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Andrew D. Straw
- Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna, Austria
- Institute of Biology I and Bernstein Center Freiburg, Faculty of Biology, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
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41
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Jolles JW, Boogert NJ, Sridhar VH, Couzin ID, Manica A. Consistent Individual Differences Drive Collective Behavior and Group Functioning of Schooling Fish. Curr Biol 2017; 27:2862-2868.e7. [PMID: 28889975 PMCID: PMC5628957 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.08.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 174] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2017] [Revised: 06/20/2017] [Accepted: 08/02/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
The ubiquity of consistent inter-individual differences in behavior ("animal personalities") [1, 2] suggests that they might play a fundamental role in driving the movements and functioning of animal groups [3, 4], including their collective decision-making, foraging performance, and predator avoidance. Despite increasing evidence that highlights their importance [5-16], we still lack a unified mechanistic framework to explain and to predict how consistent inter-individual differences may drive collective behavior. Here we investigate how the structure, leadership, movement dynamics, and foraging performance of groups can emerge from inter-individual differences by high-resolution tracking of known behavioral types in free-swimming stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) shoals. We show that individual's propensity to stay near others, measured by a classic "sociability" assay, was negatively linked to swim speed across a range of contexts, and predicted spatial positioning and leadership within groups as well as differences in structure and movement dynamics between groups. In turn, this trait, together with individual's exploratory tendency, measured by a classic "boldness" assay, explained individual and group foraging performance. These effects of consistent individual differences on group-level states emerged naturally from a generic model of self-organizing groups composed of individuals differing in speed and goal-orientedness. Our study provides experimental and theoretical evidence for a simple mechanism to explain the emergence of collective behavior from consistent individual differences, including variation in the structure, leadership, movement dynamics, and functional capabilities of groups, across social and ecological scales. In addition, we demonstrate individual performance is conditional on group composition, indicating how social selection may drive behavioral differentiation between individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jolle W Jolles
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DT, UK; Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Am Obstberg 1, Radolfzell 78315, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Konstanz 78464, Germany.
| | - Neeltje J Boogert
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DT, UK; Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Vivek H Sridhar
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Am Obstberg 1, Radolfzell 78315, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Konstanz 78464, Germany
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Am Obstberg 1, Radolfzell 78315, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Konstanz 78464, Germany
| | - Andrea Manica
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DT, UK
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Farine DR, Strandburg-Peshkin A, Couzin ID, Berger-Wolf TY, Crofoot MC. Individual variation in local interaction rules can explain emergent patterns of spatial organization in wild baboons. Proc Biol Sci 2017; 284:20162243. [PMID: 28424342 PMCID: PMC5413915 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2016] [Accepted: 03/20/2017] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Researchers have long noted that individuals occupy consistent spatial positions within animal groups. However, an individual's position depends not only on its own behaviour, but also on the behaviour of others. Theoretical models of collective motion suggest that global patterns of spatial assortment can arise from individual variation in local interaction rules. However, this prediction remains untested. Using high-resolution GPS tracking of members of a wild baboon troop, we identify consistent inter-individual differences in within-group spatial positioning. We then apply an algorithm that identifies what number of conspecific group members best predicts the future location of each individual (we call this the individual's neighbourhood size) while the troop is moving. We find clear variation in the most predictive neighbourhood size, and this variation relates to individuals' propensity to be found near the centre of their group. Using simulations, we show that having different neighbourhood sizes is a simple candidate mechanism capable of linking variation in local individual interaction rules-in this case how many conspecifics an individual interacts with-to global patterns of spatial organization, consistent with the patterns we observe in wild primates and a range of other organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- D R Farine
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, USA
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Panama
- Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK
| | - A Strandburg-Peshkin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, 106A Guyot Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - I D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
- Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - T Y Berger-Wolf
- Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, 851 South Morgan Street, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - M C Crofoot
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, USA
- Animal Behavior Graduate Group, University of California, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, USA
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Ancon, Panama
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Strandburg-Peshkin A, Farine DR, Crofoot MC, Couzin ID. Habitat and social factors shape individual decisions and emergent group structure during baboon collective movement. eLife 2017; 6:e19505. [PMID: 28139196 PMCID: PMC5283833 DOI: 10.7554/elife.19505] [Citation(s) in RCA: 97] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2016] [Accepted: 12/19/2016] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
For group-living animals traveling through heterogeneous landscapes, collective movement can be influenced by both habitat structure and social interactions. Yet research in collective behavior has largely neglected habitat influences on movement. Here we integrate simultaneous, high-resolution, tracking of wild baboons within a troop with a 3-dimensional reconstruction of their habitat to identify key drivers of baboon movement. A previously unexplored social influence - baboons' preference for locations that other troop members have recently traversed - is the most important predictor of individual movement decisions. Habitat is shown to influence movement over multiple spatial scales, from long-range attraction and repulsion from the troop's sleeping site, to relatively local influences including road-following and a short-range avoidance of dense vegetation. Scaling to the collective level reveals a clear association between habitat features and the emergent structure of the group, highlighting the importance of habitat heterogeneity in shaping group coordination.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Damien R Farine
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany,Department of Biology, Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany,Department of Zoology, Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Margaret C Crofoot
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, United States,Animal Behaviour Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, Davis, United States,Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany,Department of Biology, Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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Guayasamin OL, Couzin ID, Miller NY. Behavioural plasticity across social contexts is regulated by the directionality of inter-individual differences. Behav Processes 2016; 141:196-204. [PMID: 27737769 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2016.10.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2016] [Revised: 10/07/2016] [Accepted: 10/07/2016] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
An individual's behavioural phenotype is a combination of its unique behavioural propensities and its responsiveness to environmental variation, also known as behavioural plasticity. In social species, we must not only explore how individuals respond to variations in the physical environment but also how they react to changes in their social environment. A growing body of work has demonstrated that the behavioural heterogeneity of a group can alter its responsiveness, decision making, and fitness. Whether an individual is more or less extreme than a partner - what we term its 'relative personality' - may also alter individual behavioural responses. We determined exploratory tendencies of individual zebrafish (Danio rerio) and then constructed pairs with varying differences in 'relative personality' to determine the effect of differences between partners on behavioural plasticity. We find that relative personality, but not the magnitude of the difference between partners, is the most important determinant of behavioural plasticity across social treatments. Despite this overall effect, pairs of fish exhibited no predictable leader-follower interactions, suggesting that details of the experimental paradigm may be important in shaping social dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivia L Guayasamin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 106A Guyot Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 106A Guyot Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany; Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
| | - Noam Y Miller
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 106A Guyot Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave. West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada.
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Stein M, Janetzko H, Breitkreutz T, Seebacher D, Schreck T, Grossniklaus M, Couzin ID, Keim DA. Director's Cut: Analysis and Annotation of Soccer Matches. IEEE Comput Graph Appl 2016; 36:50-60. [PMID: 28113148 DOI: 10.1109/mcg.2016.102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
For development and alignment of tactics and strategies, professional soccer analysts spend up to three working days manually analyzing and annotating professional soccer matches. In an effort to improve soccer player and match analysis, a visual-interactive and data-analysis support system focuses on key situations by using rule-based filtering and automatically annotating key types of soccer match elements. The authors evaluate the proposed approach by analyzing real-world soccer matches and several expert studies. Quantitative measures show the proposed methods can significantly outperform naive solutions.
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Rieucau G, Holmin AJ, Castillo JC, Couzin ID, Handegard NO. School level structural and dynamic adjustments to risk promote information transfer and collective evasion in herring. Anim Behav 2016. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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Hartnett AT, Schertzer E, Levin SA, Couzin ID. Heterogeneous Preference and Local Nonlinearity in Consensus Decision Making. Phys Rev Lett 2016; 116:038701. [PMID: 26849620 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.116.038701] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2015] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
In recent years, a large body of research has focused on unveiling the fundamental physical processes that living systems utilize to perform functions, such as coordinated action and collective decision making. Here, we demonstrate that important features of collective decision making among higher organisms are captured effectively by a novel formulation of well-characterized physical spin systems, where the spin state is equivalent to two opposing preferences, and a bias in the preferred state represents the strength of individual opinions. We reveal that individuals (spins) without a preference (unbiased or uninformed) play a central role in collective decision making, both in maximizing the ability of the system to achieve consensus (via enhancement of the propagation of spin states) and in minimizing the time taken to do so (via a process reminiscent of stochastic resonance). Which state (option) is selected collectively, however, is shown to depend strongly on the nonlinearity of local interactions. Relatively linear social response results in unbiased individuals reinforcing the majority preference, even in the face of a strongly biased numerical minority (thus promoting democratic outcomes). If interactions are highly nonlinear, however, unbiased individuals exert the opposite influence, promoting a strongly biased minority and inhibiting majority preference. These results enhance our understanding of physical computation in biological collectives and suggest new avenues to explore in the collective dynamics of spin systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew T Hartnett
- Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Emmanuel Schertzer
- UPMC Université Paris 06, Laboratoire de Probabilités et Modèles Aléatoires, CNRS UMR 7599, 75005 Paris, France
- Collège de France, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, CNRS UMR 7241, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Simon A Levin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany
- Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany
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Hein AM, Rosenthal SB, Hagstrom GI, Berdahl A, Torney CJ, Couzin ID. The evolution of distributed sensing and collective computation in animal populations. eLife 2015; 4:e10955. [PMID: 26652003 PMCID: PMC4755780 DOI: 10.7554/elife.10955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2015] [Accepted: 11/01/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Many animal groups exhibit rapid, coordinated collective motion. Yet, the evolutionary forces that cause such collective responses to evolve are poorly understood. Here, we develop analytical methods and evolutionary simulations based on experimental data from schooling fish. We use these methods to investigate how populations evolve within unpredictable, time-varying resource environments. We show that populations evolve toward a distinctive regime in behavioral phenotype space, where small responses of individuals to local environmental cues cause spontaneous changes in the collective state of groups. These changes resemble phase transitions in physical systems. Through these transitions, individuals evolve the emergent capacity to sense and respond to resource gradients (i.e. individuals perceive gradients via social interactions, rather than sensing gradients directly), and to allocate themselves among distinct, distant resource patches. Our results yield new insight into how natural selection, acting on selfish individuals, results in the highly effective collective responses evident in nature. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10955.001 In nature, we see many examples of highly coordinated movements of groups of individuals; think of a flock of birds turning swiftly in unison or a crowd of people filing through the exit of a building. A common feature of these behaviors is that they occur without any centralized control, and that they involve sudden and often dramatic changes in the 'collective state' of the group (i.e. speed, or the distances between individuals). In the past, researchers have likened these transitions in collective behavior to phase transitions in physical systems, for example, the transition between liquid water and water vapor. However, it is not clear how such collective responses could have evolved. Natural selection is an evolutionary process whereby individuals with particularly 'fit' traits produce more offspring than others. Over many generations, these beneficial traits tend to become more common in the population. Hein, Rosenthal, Hagstrom et al. developed a mathematical model to investigate whether the capacity of a population to perform collective motions could evolve through natural selection. The model shows that over many generations, populations consistently evolve a unique collective trait whereby small responses of individuals to an environmental cue can cause spontaneous changes in the collective state of the local population. These transitions in collective state greatly enhance the ability of individuals to locate and exploit resources. Hein, Rosenthal, Hagstrom et al.’s findings suggest that natural selection acting on the behavior of individuals can cause a population to evolve a distinctive, collective behavior. The next challenge will be to identify a biological system in which the evolution of collective motion can be studied experimentally to test these predictions. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.10955.002
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew M Hein
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
| | - Sara Brin Rosenthal
- Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, United States.,Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany
| | - George I Hagstrom
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
| | | | - Colin J Torney
- Centre for Mathematics and the Environment, University of Exeter, Penryn, United Kingdom
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany.,Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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Reid CR, Lutz MJ, Powell S, Kao AB, Couzin ID, Garnier S. Army ants dynamically adjust living bridges in response to a cost-benefit trade-off. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2015; 112:15113-8. [PMID: 26598673 PMCID: PMC4679032 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1512241112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 82] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability of individual animals to create functional structures by joining together is rare and confined to the social insects. Army ants (Eciton) form collective assemblages out of their own bodies to perform a variety of functions that benefit the entire colony. Here we examine ‟bridges" of linked individuals that are constructed to span gaps in the colony's foraging trail. How these living structures adjust themselves to varied and changing conditions remains poorly understood. Our field experiments show that the ants continuously modify their bridges, such that these structures lengthen, widen, and change position in response to traffic levels and environmental geometry. Ants initiate bridges where their path deviates from their incoming direction and move the bridges over time to create shortcuts over large gaps. The final position of the structure depended on the intensity of the traffic and the extent of path deviation and was influenced by a cost-benefit trade-off at the colony level, where the benefit of increased foraging trail efficiency was balanced by the cost of removing workers from the foraging pool to form the structure. To examine this trade-off, we quantified the geometric relationship between costs and benefits revealed by our experiments. We then constructed a model to determine the bridge location that maximized foraging rate, which qualitatively matched the observed movement of bridges. Our results highlight how animal self-assemblages can be dynamically modified in response to a group-level cost-benefit trade-off, without any individual unit's having information on global benefits or costs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chris R Reid
- Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102;
| | - Matthew J Lutz
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544;
| | - Scott Powell
- Department of Biological Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
| | - Albert B Kao
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz D-78457, Germany; Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz D-78457, Germany
| | - Simon Garnier
- Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102
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Strandburg-Peshkin A, Farine DR, Couzin ID, Crofoot MC. The wisdom of baboon decisions—Response. Science 2015; 349:935-6. [PMID: 26315425 DOI: 10.1126/science.349.6251.935-c] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Damien R Farine
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK.
| | - Iain D Couzin
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, D-78457, Germany. Chair of Biodiversity and Collective Behaviour, Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, D-78457, Germany
| | - Margaret C Crofoot
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama.
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