Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move

Abstract

For animals that forage or travel in groups, making movement decisions often depends on social interactions among group members1,2. However, in many cases, few individuals have pertinent information, such as knowledge about the location of a food source3,4, or of a migration route5,6,7,8,9. Using a simple model we show how information can be transferred within groups both without signalling and when group members do not know which individuals, if any, have information. We reveal that the larger the group the smaller the proportion of informed individuals needed to guide the group, and that only a very small proportion of informed individuals is required to achieve great accuracy. We also demonstrate how groups can make consensus decisions, even though informed individuals do not know whether they are in a majority or minority, how the quality of their information compares with that of others, or even whether there are any other informed individuals. Our model provides new insights into the mechanisms of effective leadership and decision-making in biological systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Group accuracy, and shape, as a function of the proportion of informed individuals p, for different group sizes N.
Figure 2: The influence of the weighting of preferred direction.
Figure 3: Collective selection of group direction when informed individuals differ in preference.
Figure 4: Discrimination between two directions (s1 = 0; s2 = 100 degrees) based on information quality (χ, see Methods).

References

  1. Krause, J. & Ruxton, G. D. Living in Groups 84–85, 137–143 (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2002)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Couzin, I. D. & Krause, J. Self-organization and collective behaviour in vertebrates. Adv. Study Behav. 32, 1–75 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Reebs, S. G. Can a minority of informed leaders determine the foraging movements of a fish shoal? Anim. Behav. 59, 403–409 (2000)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Swaney, W., Kendal, J., Capon, H., Brown, C. & Laland, K. N. Familiarity facilitates social learning of foraging behaviour in the guppy. Anim. Behav. 62, 591–598 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Franks, N. R., Pratt, S. C., Mallon, E. B., Britton, N. F. & Sumpter, D. J. T. Information flow, opinion polling and collective intelligence in house-hunting social insects. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 357, 1567–1583 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Lindauer, M. Communication in swarm-bees searching for a new home. Nature 179, 63–66 (1957)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Seeley, T. D. Honeybee Ecology: a Study of Adaptation in Social Life 71–74 (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1985)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. Seeley, T. D. The Wisdom of the Hive 34–35 (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1995)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Seeley, T. D. Consensus building during nest-site selection in honey bee swarms: the expiration of dissent. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 53, 417–424 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Conradt, L. & Roper, T. J. Group decision-making in animals. Nature 421, 155–158 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. von Frisch, K. The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees 28–235 (Harvard Univ. Press, Harvard, 1967)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Rubenstein, D. I. & Hack, M. Horse signals: the sounds of scents and fury. Evol. Ecol. 6, 254–260 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Partridge, B. L. Structure and function of fish schools. Sci. Am. 245, 114–123 (1982)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Berthold, P. & Querner, U. Genetic basis of migratory behaviour in European warblers. Science 212, 77–79 (1981)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Berthold, P., Helbig, A. J., Mohr, G. & Querner, U. Rapid microevolution of migratory behaviour in a wild bird species. Nature 360, 668–670 (1992)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Neill, W. H. Mechanisms of fish distribution in heterothermal environments. Am. Zool. 19, 305–317 (1979)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Grunbaum, D. Schooling as a strategy for taxis in a noisy environment. Evol. Ecol. 12, 503–522 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Couzin, I. D., Krause, J., James, R., Ruxton, G. D. & Franks, N. R. Collective memory and spatial sorting in animal groups. J. Theor. Biol. 218, 1–11 (2002)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. Hoare, D. J., Couzin, I. D., Godin, J.-G. & Krause, J. Context-dependent group-size choice in fish. Anim. Behav. 67, 155–164 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Batschelet, E. Circular Statistics in Biology 34–36 (Academic, London, 1981)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Simons, A. M. Many wrongs: the advantage of group navigation. Trends Ecol. Evol. 19, 453–455 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Gregóire, G., Chaté, H. & Tu, Y. Moving and staying together without a leader. Physica D 181, 157–170 (2003)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I.D.C. thanks the Pew Charitable Trusts, the NSF and the EPSRC for their support. I.D.C. and J.K. acknowledge an EPSRC grant and are also grateful for fellowships at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, where we had the opportunity to develop this research. S.A.L. acknowledges support from the NSF and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and N.R.F. from the EPSRC and the BBSRC. I.D.C. thanks Balliol College for support and S. Pratt, D. Rubenstein, D. James and A. Ward for their input.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iain D. Couzin.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1

This figure shows the influence of imperfect information on the relationship between weighting ω and the accuracy of groups and the proportion of groups that split (a), and the proportion of informed individuals p and accuracy and proportion of splitting (b). (DOC 156 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Couzin, I., Krause, J., Franks, N. et al. Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move. Nature 433, 513–516 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03236

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03236

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing