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Leading from the front? Social networks in navigating groups

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Abstract

In many group-living animals, leadership by only a fraction of the group members can be important for group navigation. It has been shown that subgroups of informed individuals can steer the remainder of the group without direct communication, resolving conflicts of interest through individual-to-individual interactions. We present a model for the navigation of collectively moving groups that includes preferential interactions between individuals as a way of imposing social network structures, known to be present in many species. We show that effective leadership can occur when leaders do not occupy frontal spatial positions and when navigation tendency is appropriately balanced with social position. Our model also shows that small minorities can dominate movement decisions if they have navigational knowledge combined with influential social network positions. Our findings highlight the mechanistic importance of social networks for the movement decisions of animal groups. We discuss the implications of our research for interpreting empirical observations.

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Acknowledgements

NWFB acknowledges funding from the Natural Environment Research Council. DWF and AJW are funded by RCUK fellowships. The authors would like to thank four referees and the editors for insightful and constructive comments which greatly improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

    Nikolai W. F. Bode

  2. York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis, University of York, York, YO10 5GE, UK

    Nikolai W. F. Bode, Daniel W. Franks & A. Jamie Wood

  3. Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5YW, UK

    Nikolai W. F. Bode, Daniel W. Franks & A. Jamie Wood

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK

    Daniel W. Franks

  5. Department of Mathematics, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK

    A. Jamie Wood

Authors
  1. Nikolai W. F. Bode
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  2. Daniel W. Franks
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  3. A. Jamie Wood
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nikolai W. F. Bode.

Additional information

Communicated by J. Krause

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Bode, N.W.F., Franks, D.W. & Wood, A.J. Leading from the front? Social networks in navigating groups. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 66, 835–843 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1331-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1331-6

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