Thousands of starlings swarm above Gretna Green - new research suggests they use a flexible leadership to keep in formationScientists have discovered how huge flocks of birds decide when to change direction in mid flight... they use a kind of 'democratic hierarchy.'
The team from Britain and Hungary strapped tiny global position systems (GPS) to pigeons to work out how they operated as a well-ordered group rather than chaotic individuals.
The researchers recorded the flight paths of individual birds and then analysed interactions between them.
They found that pigeon flocks use a flexible system of leadership where almost every member plays a part, but high-ranking birds have more power.
The findings, published in the journal Nature yesterday, could help unravel the collective behaviour and decision-making processes of other groups of animals, including humans.
'We are all aware of the amazing aerobatics performed by flocks of birds, but how such flocks decide where to go and whether decisions are made by a dominant leader or by the group as a whole has always been a mystery,' said Dora Biro of the zoology department at Britain's Oxford University, who worked on the study.
The scientists found that while most birds in a flock do have a say in decision-making, a flexible ranking system means some birds are more likely to lead and others to follow.
Flocks of homing pigeons were fitted with mini GPS backpacks to analyse how they decided to change directionTo conduct their study, the researchers fitted miniature GPS loggers weighing less than one ounce into custom-made backpacks carried by flocks of up to 10 homing pigeons.
The devices allowed scientists to analyse spatial and temporal relationships between birds and the movement decisions they made at the scale of a fraction of a second.
'These hierarchies are flexible in the sense that the leading role of any given bird can vary over time,' said Biro.
'This dynamic, flexible segregation of individuals into leaders and followers - where even the lower-ranking members' opinions can make a contribution - may represent a particularly efficient form of decision-making.'
The scientists said more studies could help explain how such a sophisticated leadership system is able to give evolutionary advantage to individuals, compared with strategy based on a single leader or one where all members play an equal part.
source :dailymail
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