Social interactions and collective movements

Collective animal movements such as schooling of fish or flocking in birds can be modelled using simple rules of interactions i.e. repulsion, attraction and alignment. However, other aspects of animal behaviour such as aggression and leadership may also be modelled as distinctive patterns of relative movements among individuals.

For example, aggression is characterized by sudden accelerations towards the other individual which responds by retreating or fleeing.

Leadership may be defined as an event where an individual enters a new area and is immediately followed by another individual. Collective navigation may be considered a tug of war between individual instincts of exploration and the propensity to remain in close proximity with others.