Collective animal behavior

Collective animal behavior is a form of social behavior involving the coordinated behavior of large groups of similar animals as well as emergent properties of these groups. This can include the costs and benefits of group membership, the transfer of information across the group, the group decision-making process, and group locomotion and synchronization. Studying the principles of collective animal behavior has relevance to human engineering problems through the philosophy of biomimetics. For instance, determining the rules by which an individual animal navigates relative to its neighbors in a group can lead to advances in the deployment and control of groups of swimming or flying micro-robots such as UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).Examples of collective animal behavior include: The basis of collective animal behaviour originated from the study of collective phenomena; that is, repeated interactions among individuals that produce large scale patterns. The foundation of collective phenomena originates from the idea that collective systems can be understood from a set of techniques. For example, Nicolis and Prigogine (1977) employed the use of non-linear thermodynamics to help explain similarities between collective systems at different scales. Other studies aim to use physics, mathematics and chemistry to provide frameworks to study collective phenomena.Many functions of animal aggregations have been proposed. These proposed functions may be grouped into the four following categories: social and genetic, anti-predator, enhanced foraging, and increased locomotion efficiency.Animals that form colonies form a cost of living in groups. These colonies exhibit a system with close physical proximity and increased contact between individuals, thus increasing transmission of disease and ectoparasites; a universal hazard of animals living in groups. The structure of large animal groups has been difficult to study because of the large number of animals involved. The experimental approach is therefore often complemented by mathematical modeling of animal aggregations.Aggregations of animals are faced with decisions which they must make if they are to remain together. For a school of fish, an example of a typical decision might be which direction to swim when confronted by a predator. Social insects such as ants and bees must collectively decide where to build a new nest. A herd of elephants must decide when and where to migrate. How are these decisions made? Do stronger or more experienced 'leaders' exert more influence than other group members, or does the group make a decision by consensus? The answer probably depends on the species. While the role of a leading matriarch in an elephant herd is well known, studies have shown that some animal species use a consensus approach in their collective decision-making process.