Visual trail following in colonial seabirds: theory, simulation, and remote observations

Urmy, Samuel S.

doi:10.1002/ecm.1429

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Individuals inhabiting patches subjected to press perturbations and decreasing densities may disperse to avoid the costs of living in small groups (e.g., incurring in Allee effects) ( 56 – 58 ). We also know that birds and mammals may follow others while foraging and commuting between feeding patches ( 59 , 60 ). This process might also operate while individuals are prospecting different breeding patches for gathering information about where to disperse ( 4 , 52 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social copying drives a tipping point for nonlinear population collapse

Oro

Alsedà

Hastings

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Sudden changes in populations are ubiquitous in ecological systems, especially under perturbations. The agents of global change may increase the frequency and severity of anthropogenic perturbations, but complex populations’ responses hamper our understanding of their dynamics and resilience. Furthermore, the long-term environmental and demographic data required to study those sudden changes are rare. Fitting dynamical models with an artificial intelligence algorithm to population fluctuations over 40 y in a social bird reveals that feedback in dispersal after a cumulative perturbation drives a population collapse. The collapse is well described by a nonlinear function mimicking social copying, whereby dispersal made by a few individuals induces others to leave the patch in a behavioral cascade for decision-making to disperse. Once a threshold for deterioration of the quality of the patch is crossed, there is a tipping point for a social response of runaway dispersal corresponding to social copying feedback. Finally, dispersal decreases at low population densities, which is likely due to the unwillingness of the more philopatric individuals to disperse. In providing the evidence of copying for the emergence of feedback in dispersal in a social organism, our results suggest a broader impact of self-organized collective dispersal in complex population dynamics. This has implications for the theoretical study of population and metapopulation nonlinear dynamics, including population extinction, and managing of endangered and harvested populations of social animals subjected to behavioral feedback loops.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social copying drives a tipping point for nonlinear population collapse

Oro

Alsedà

Hastings

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Finally, the low Lessard number (Le = 0.005) indicates that terns rarely deplete patches, so models of this interaction can treat the density and distribution of their prey as endogenous variables (cf. Urmy, 2021).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

When are bacteria really gazelles? Comparing patchy ecologies with dimensionless numbers

et al. 2022

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From micro to planetary scales, spatial heterogeneity—patchiness—is ubiquitous in ecosystems, defining the environments in which organisms move and interact. However, most large‐scale models still use spatially averaged ‘mean fields’ to represent natural populations, while fine‐scale spatially explicit models are mostly restricted to particular organisms or systems. In a conceptual paper, Grünbaum (2012, Interface Focus 2: 150–155) introduced a heuristic, based on three dimensionless ratios quantifying movement, reproduction and resource consumption, to characterise patchy ecological interactions and identify when mean‐field assumptions are justifiable. We calculated these dimensionless numbers for 33 interactions between consumers and their resource patches in terrestrial, aquatic and aerial environments. Consumers ranged in size from bacteria to whales, and patches lasted from minutes to millennia, with separation scales from mm to hundreds of km. No interactions could be accurately represented by naive mean‐field models, though 19 (58%) could be partially simplified by averaging out movement, reproductive or consumption dynamics. Clustering interactions by their non‐dimensional ratios revealed several unexpected dynamic similarities. For example, bacterial Pseudoalteromonas exploit nutrient plumes similarly to Mongolian gazelles grazing on ephemeral steppe vegetation. We argue that dimensional analysis is valuable for characterising ecological patchiness and can link widely different systems into a single quantitative framework.

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“…Another possibility is that individuals from the aggregation follow departing, apparently informed individuals to food patches. Some field observations agree with this possibility while others do not (Brown, 1986;Mock et al, 1988;Marzluff et al, 1996;Danchin and Richner, 2001;Sonerud et al, 2001;Harel et al, 2017;Urmy, 2021). It is fair to assume, however, that socially biased movement occurs in many species.…”

Section: Aggregations Information and Individual Movementmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Cognitive Ecology of Animal Movement: Evidence From Birds and Mammals

2021

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Cognition, defined as the processes concerned with the acquisition, retention and use of information, underlies animals’ abilities to navigate their local surroundings, embark on long-distance seasonal migrations, and socially learn information relevant to movement. Hence, in order to fully understand and predict animal movement, researchers must know the cognitive mechanisms that generate such movement. Work on a few model systems indicates that most animals possess excellent spatial learning and memory abilities, meaning that they can acquire and later recall information about distances and directions among relevant objects. Similarly, field work on several species has revealed some of the mechanisms that enable them to navigate over distances of up to several thousand kilometers. Key behaviors related to movement such as the choice of nest location, home range location and migration route are often affected by parents and other conspecifics. In some species, such social influence leads to the formation of aggregations, which in turn may lead to further social learning about food locations or other resources. Throughout the review, we note a variety of topics at the interface of cognition and movement that invite further investigation. These include the use of social information embedded in trails, the likely important roles of soundscapes and smellscapes, the mechanisms that large mammals rely on for long-distance migration, and the effects of expertise acquired over extended periods.

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Visual trail following in colonial seabirds: theory, simulation, and remote observations

Cited by 6 publications

References 57 publications

Social copying drives a tipping point for nonlinear population collapse

Social copying drives a tipping point for nonlinear population collapse

When are bacteria really gazelles? Comparing patchy ecologies with dimensionless numbers

The Cognitive Ecology of Animal Movement: Evidence From Birds and Mammals

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