Matching times of leading and following suggest cooperation through direct reciprocity during V-formation flight in ibis

Voelkl, Bernhard; Portugal, Steven J.; Unsöld, Markus; Usherwood, James R.; Wilson, Alan M.; Fritz, Johannes (2015). Matching times of leading and following suggest cooperation through direct reciprocity during V-formation flight in ibis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - PNAS, 112(7), pp. 2115-2120. National Academy of Sciences NAS 10.1073/pnas.1413589112

[img] Text
Voelkl_PNAS2015.pdf - Published Version
Restricted to registered users only
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (789kB)

Cooperation in animals is an enigma because it contravenes the basic notion that evolution favors selfish genes that promote only their own well-being. Bird migration in organized V-shaped or echelon formations constitutes such a cooperation dilemma. We show that juvenile Northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) cooperate by taking turns and precisely matching times they spend in the advantageous trailing position and in the disadvantageous front position. This time matching is done on a pairwise level. Furthermore, we found evidence that the animals' propensity to reciprocate in leading has a substantial influence on the size and cohesion of the flight formations. This study shows that direct reciprocation can enable cooperation between animals in a natural context.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)

UniBE Contributor:

Völkl, Bernhard

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology

ISSN:

0027-8424

Publisher:

National Academy of Sciences NAS

Language:

English

Submitter:

Karin Schneeberger

Date Deposited:

27 Sep 2016 11:24

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:59

Publisher DOI:

10.1073/pnas.1413589112

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.88824

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/88824

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback