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Selfish-herd behaviour of sheep under threat

King, AJ; Wilson, AM; Wilshin, SD; Lowe, J; Haddadi, H; Hailes, S; Morton, AJ; (2012) Selfish-herd behaviour of sheep under threat. Current Biology , 22 (14) R561 - R562. 10.1016/j.cub.2012.05.008. Green open access

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Abstract

Flocking is a striking example of collective behaviour that is found in insect swarms, fish schools and mammal herds [1]. A major factor in the evolution of flocking behaviour is thought to be predation, whereby larger and/or more cohesive groups are better at detecting predators (as, for example, in the ‘many eyes theory’), and diluting the effects of predators (as in the ‘selfish-herd theory’) than are individuals in smaller and/or dispersed groups [2]. The former theory assumes that information (passively or actively transferred) can be disseminated more effectively in larger/cohesive groups, while the latter assumes that there are spatial benefits to individuals in a large group, since individuals can alter their spatial position relative to their group-mates and any potential predator, thus reducing their predation risk [3]. We used global positioning system (GPS) data to characterise the response of a group of ‘prey’ animals (a flock of sheep) to an approaching ‘predator’ (a herding dog). Analyses of relative sheep movement trajectories showed that sheep exhibit a strong attraction towards the centre of the flock under threat, a pattern that we could re-create using a simple model. These results support the long-standing assertion that individuals can respond to potential danger by moving towards the centre of a fleeing group [2].

Type: Article
Title: Selfish-herd behaviour of sheep under threat
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.05.008
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.05.008
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. PubMed ID: 22835787
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1366736
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