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Leadership and Group decision making in animals

From the end of the 90's, several research teams had started to investigate the question of leadership and group movements. These studies address, interesting questions about the validity of the concept of leadership, the decision-making process, the adhesion, the number of recognizable phases... Many points about the concept of leadership need to be investigated: does leadership always mirror a high dominance status, is this first moving individual only an initiator or does it really govern the movements of the whole group? Which motivation drives an individual to move? Is the probability to make a start attempt related to the temperament or personal experience about the environment? Does a start attempt act as a signal or a cue for other group members? Besides, does a negotiation process occur between group members before any start attempt? Are there empirical evidences of voting behaviour? Do we have to distinguish between the behaviours occurring before the start attempt and the beginning of the collective movement? A further point refers to the participants to a movement as well as its organization. Whether only a subgroup adheres to the movement, can it be considered as a collective movement? Is the adhesion process dependent of the social network or does it only result from gregariousness of group members?

The aim of this symposium is to bring together several scientists working on group decision-making with multiple approaches, quantifying spontaneous group movements or movements induced by trained individuals, discussing more conceptually different types of consensus or proposing models of group movements. The 4th meeting of the ECBB is a good opportunity to bring together researchers working on different taxa, from social insects to non-human primates. We hope that this meeting will allow fruitful discussion about concepts, empirical, experimental and theoretical studies and hopefully new collaborative projects.

The organisors of this session are Odile Petit (odile.petit@c-strasbourg.fr) and Richard Bon (rbon@cict.fr).

List of speakers:

  • - Dora Biro, Oxford university, U.K.: Leadership in Pigeon homing (confirmed)
  • - Marie Bourjade, University of Rennes, France: Decision-making processes in the collective movements of Przewalski horses: Influences of the environment (confirmed)
  • - Jérôme Bühl, University of Sydney, Australia: From disorder to order in locust marching bands (confirmed)
  • - Larissa Conradt, University of Sussex, U.K.: Consensus decision-making, from despotism to democracy (confirmed)
  • - Ian Couzin, Princeton University, U.S.A.: Collective motion and decision-making in animal groups. (confirmed)
  • - Jean-Louis Deneubourg, Free University of Brussels, Belgium: Information processing in social insects (confirmed)
  • - Ilya Fischhoff, Princeton University, U.S.A.: Leadership and biological status during group movements in zebras
  • - Nigel Franks, University of Bristol, U.K.: Decision-making by ant colonies (confirmed)
  • - Jacques Gautrais, University of Toulouse, France: Swimming in a school (confirmed)
  • - Irene Giardina, ISS, Italy: Understanding the mechanisms of complex flocking behaviour of starlings (confirmed)
  • - Gerald Kerth, University of Zürich, Switzerland: Group decision making in fission-fusion societies (confirmed)
  • - Jens Krause, University of Leeds, U.K.: modelling collective decision fish shoals (confirmed)
  • - Rahel Noser, University of Zürich, Switzerland: Travel routes in Savannah baboons: the influence of other groups
  • - Marie-Hélène Pillot, University of Toulouse, France: Incident leaders in sheep (confirmed)
  • - Amandine Ramseyer, University of Strasbourg, France: Decision-making in group departures of juvenile domestic geese (confirmed)
  • - Stephan Reebs, University of Moncton, Canada: motivation of leaders in golden shiners (confirmed)
  • - Cédric Sueur, University of Strasbourg, France: True vote in Tonkean macaques (confirmed)
  • - Ashley Ward, University of Sydney, Australia: leadership in fish shoals (confirmed)