Document Detail


Social feedback and the emergence of leaders and followers.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  19185497     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
In many animal groups, certain individuals consistently appear at the forefront of coordinated movements [1-4]. How such leaders emerge is poorly understood [5, 6]. Here, we show that in pairs of sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, leadership arises from individual differences in the way that fish respond to their partner's movements. Having first established that individuals differed in their propensity to leave cover in order to look for food, we randomly paired fish of varying boldness, and we used a Markov Chain model to infer the individual rules underlying their joint behavior. Both fish in a pair responded to each other's movements-each was more likely to leave cover if the other was already out and to return if the other had already returned. However, we found that bolder individuals displayed greater initiative and were less responsive to their partners, whereas shyer individuals displayed less initiative but followed their partners more faithfully; they also, as followers, elicited greater leadership tendencies in their bold partners. We conclude that leadership in this case is reinforced by positive social feedback.
Authors:
Jennifer L Harcourt; Tzo Zen Ang; Gemma Sweetman; Rufus A Johnstone; Andrea Manica
Related Documents :
16593907 - Mass mortality of a caribbean sea urchin: immediate effects on community metabolism and...
17701677 - Melatonin in the regulation of annual testicular events in carp catla catla: evidence f...
20666897 - Implications of stunting on morphology of freshwater fishes.
19005717 - The sublethal effects of low-ph exposure on the chemoreception of poecilia sphenops.
22292007 - Adaptation to abundant low quality food improves the ability to compete for limited ric...
19610347 - Real-time pcr as a tool for detection of pathogenic bacteria on contaminated food conta...
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't     Date:  2009-01-29
Journal Detail:
Title:  Current biology : CB     Volume:  19     ISSN:  1879-0445     ISO Abbreviation:  Curr. Biol.     Publication Date:  2009 Feb 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2009-02-12     Completed Date:  2009-04-24     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  9107782     Medline TA:  Curr Biol     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  248-52     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Export Citation:
APA/MLA Format     Download EndNote     Download BibTex
MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Analysis of Variance
Animals
Appetitive Behavior / physiology
Feedback*
Great Britain
Leadership*
Markov Chains
Models, Biological
Monte Carlo Method
Smegmamorpha / physiology*
Social Behavior*
Video Recording

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


Previous Document:  The coding of color, motion, and their conjunction in the human visual cortex.
Next Document:  phytochrome B and PIF4 regulate stomatal development in response to light quantity.