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The STARFLAG handbook on collective animal behaviour: Part I, empirical methods

@article{Cavagna2008TheSH,
  title={The STARFLAG handbook on collective animal behaviour: Part I, empirical methods},
  author={Andrea Cavagna and Irene Giardina and Alberto Orlandi and Giorgio Parisi and Andrea Procaccini and Massimiliano Viale and Vladimir Zdravkovic},
  journal={arXiv: Quantitative Methods},
  year={2008}
}
The most startling examples of collective animal behaviour are provided by very large and cohesive groups moving in three dimensions. Paradigmatic examples are bird flocks, fish schools and insect swarms. However, because of the sheer technical difficulty of obtaining 3D data, empirical studies conducted to date have only considered loose groups of a few tens of animals. Moreover, these studies were very seldom conducted in the field. Recently the STARFLAG project achieved the 3D reconstruction… 
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18 Citations
Background Citations
5
Methods Citations
1

18 Citations

The STARFLAG handbook on collective animal behaviour: Part II, three-dimensional analysis

It is demonstrated that neglecting border effects gives rise to artefacts when studying the 3D structure of a group, and that mathematical rigour is essential to distinguish important biological properties from trivial geometric features of animal groups.

An empirical study of large, naturally occurring starling flocks: a benchmark in collective animal behaviour

This work measured the individual three-dimensional positions in compact flocks of up to 2700 birds and investigated the main features of the flock as a whole - shape, movement, density and structure - and discusses these as emergent attributes of the grouping phenomenon.

Scale-free correlations in starling flocks

It is suggested that flocks behave as critical systems, poised to respond maximally to environmental perturbations, through scale-free behavioral correlations, which provide each animal with an effective perception range much larger than the direct interindividual interaction range, thus enhancing global response to perturbation.

Collective Behaviour without Collective Order in Wild Swarms of Midges

It is found that correlation increases sharply with the swarm's density, indicating that the interaction between midges is based on a metric perception mechanism, suggesting that correlation, rather than order, is the true hallmark of collective behaviour in biological systems.

New statistical tools for analyzing the structure of animal groups.

Understanding how animal groups achieve coordinated movement

How trajectory data can be used to infer how animals interact in moving groups is described, and differences in the interaction rules of animals within and between species are discussed.

GReTA-A Novel Global and Recursive Tracking Algorithm in Three Dimensions

This paper presents a 3D tracking method that is robust in the case of severe occlusions, and employs a divide and conquer formulation, thanks to which the computational complexity of the problem is reduced by orders of magnitude.

Collective Behaviors Through Social Interactions in Bird Flocks

This article aims at providing a discussion of various facets of this interdisciplinary field, including simulation models, mathematical methods and control theory, on several models of collective behaviors in bird flocks, a representative kind of MAS.

Spatially balanced topological interaction grants optimal cohesion in flocking models

This work shows that topological models are more stable than metric ones, and finds that the minimal number of interacting neighbours needed to achieve fully stable cohesion in a spatially balanced model is compatible with the value observed in field experiments on starling flocks.

The seventh starling

A flock of starlings wheel overhead, thousands of birds rising, falling, turning as if of one mind. Birds move in flocks; fish in schools; insects in swarms. How do they do it? Can we study them to…

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 42 REFERENCES

The STARFLAG handbook on collective animal behaviour: Part II, three-dimensional analysis

It is demonstrated that neglecting border effects gives rise to artefacts when studying the 3D structure of a group, and that mathematical rigour is essential to distinguish important biological properties from trivial geometric features of animal groups.

The STARFLAG handbook on collective animal behaviour: 2. Three-dimensional analysis

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