Mann, R. orcid.org/0000-0003-0701-1274, Bailey, J. D. and Codling, E. A. (2024) Accuracy, rationality and specialisation in a generalised model of collective navigation. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 21 (218). 20240207. ISSN 1742-5689
Abstract
Animal navigation is a key behavioural process, from localised foraging to global migration. Within groups individuals may improve their navigational accuracy by following those with more experience or knowledge, by pooling information from many directional estimates ("many wrongs"), or some combination of these strategies. Previous agent-based simulations have highlighted that homogeneous leaderless groups can improve their collective navigation accuracy when individuals preferentially copy the movement directions of their neighbours while giving a low weighting to their own navigational knowledge. Meanwhile, other studies have demonstrated how specialised leaders may emerge, and that a small number of such individuals can improve group-level navigation performance. However, in general, these earlier results either lack a full mathematical grounding or do not fully consider the effect of individual self-interest. Here we derive and analyse a mathematically tractable model of collective navigation. We demonstrate that collective navigation is compromised when individuals seek to optimise their own accuracy in both homogeneous groups and those with differing navigational abilities. We further demonstrate how heterogeneous navigational strategies (specialised leaders and followers) may evolve within the model. Our results thus unify different lines of research in collective navigation and highlight the importance of individual selection in determining group composition and performance.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | animal movement, collective navigation,leadership, many wrongs principle, rationality |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Statistics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Templeton World Charity Foundation UR FAO GR533391 MRC (Medical Research Council) MR/X036863/1 MRC (Medical Research Council) MR/S032525/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Aug 2024 09:22 |
Last Modified: | 09 Oct 2024 13:07 |
Published Version: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsi... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rsif.2024.0207 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:215755 |