Department of Migration and Immuno-ecology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Am Obstberg 1, 78315 Radolfzell, Germany
Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2018 May 19;373(1746). doi: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0006.
Collective decision-making is a daily occurrence in the lives of many group-living animals, and can have critical consequences for the fitness of individuals. Understanding how decisions are reached, including who has influence and the mechanisms by which information and preferences are integrated, has posed a fundamental challenge. Here, we provide a methodological framework for studying influence and leadership in groups. We propose that individuals have if their actions result in some behavioural change among their group-mates, and are if they consistently influence others. We highlight three components of influence (influence instances, total influence and consistency of influence), which can be assessed at two levels (individual-to-individual and individual-to-group). We then review different methods, ranging from individual positioning within groups to information-theoretic approaches, by which influence has been operationally defined in empirical studies, as well as how such observations can be aggregated to give insight into the underlying decision-making process. We focus on the domain of collective movement, with a particular emphasis on methods that have recently been, or are being, developed to take advantage of simultaneous tracking data. We aim to provide a resource bringing together methodological tools currently available for studying leadership in moving animal groups, as well as to discuss the limitations of current methodologies and suggest productive avenues for future research.This article is part of the theme issue 'Collective movement ecology'.
集体决策是许多群居动物日常生活中的常见现象，对个体的适应能力有着至关重要的影响。理解决策是如何做出的，包括谁有影响力以及信息和偏好是如何整合的，这一直是一个基本的挑战。在这里，我们提供了一个研究群体中影响和领导力的方法框架。我们提出，如果个体的行为导致其群体伙伴的某些行为发生变化，则个体具有影响力；如果个体能够持续地影响他人，则个体具有领导力。我们强调了影响的三个组成部分（影响实例、总影响和影响的一致性），这些可以在两个层面上进行评估（个体对个体和个体对群体）。然后，我们回顾了不同的方法，从个体在群体中的定位到信息论方法，这些方法在实证研究中对影响进行了操作性定义，以及如何将这些观察结果汇总以深入了解潜在的决策过程。我们专注于集体运动领域，特别强调了最近或正在开发的利用同步跟踪数据的方法。我们旨在提供一个资源，汇集目前用于研究动物群体运动中领导力的方法工具，并讨论当前方法的局限性，提出未来研究的富有成效的途径。本文是主题为“集体运动生态学”的特刊的一部分。
