Collective responses of flocking sheep to a herding dog

Abstract

Across taxa, group-living organisms exhibit collective escape responses to stimuli varying from mild stress to predatory pressures. How exactly does information flow among group members leading to a collective escape remains an open question. Here we study the collective responses of a flock of sheep to a shepherd dog in a driving task between well-defined target points. We collected high-resolution spatio-temporal data from 14 sheep and the dog, using Ultra Wide Band tags attached to each individual. Through the time delay analysis of velocity correlations, we identify a hierarchy among sheep in terms of directional influence. Notably, the average spatial position of a sheep along the front-back axis of the group's velocity strongly correlates with its impact on the collective movement. Our findings demonstrate that, counter-intuitively, directional information on shorter time scales propagates from the front of the group towards the rear, and that the dog exhibits adaptive movement adjustments in response to the flock's dynamics. Furthermore, we show that a simple shepherding model can capture key features of the collective response of the sheep flocks. In conclusion, our study reveals novel insights on how directional information propagates in escaping animal groups.