Flock flying improves pigeons' homing: GPS track analysis of individual flyers versus small groups

By G. Dell’Ariccia, G. dell’Omo, D. Wolfer, H. Lipp. 2008

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The effects of aggregation in navigating animals have generated growing interest in field and theoretical studies. The few studies on the effects of group flying on the performance of homing pigeons, Columba livia, have led to controversial conclusions, chiefly because of the lack of appropriate technology to follow pigeons during their entire homeward flight. Therefore, we used GPS data loggers on six highly trained pigeons from a familiar release site first by releasing them six times individually, then six times as a group from the same site, and, finally, again six times individually. Flight data showed that the homing performance of the birds flying as a flock was significantly better than that of the birds released individually. When flying in a flock, pigeons showed no resting episodes, shorter homing times, higher speed, and almost no circling around the start zone in comparison to individual flights. Moreover, flock-flying pigeons took a nearly direct, ‘beeline’ route to the loft, whereas individually flying birds preferred to follow roads and other longitudinal landmarks leading towards the loft, even when it caused a detour. Our results show that group cohesion facilitates a shift towards more efficient homing strategies: individuals prefer navigating by familiar landmarks, while flocks show a compass orientation.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/25861a82d01883f708a59f4d0679e608dc907009

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In Ecology

1. Thomas R. Quinn
2. Iain D. Couzin
3. Simon A. Levin

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. Iain D. Couzin
2. Thomas R. Quinn
3. Simon A. Levin
4. David J. T. Sumpter
5. Cédric Sueur

In Genetics

1. Iain D. Couzin
2. Thomas R. Quinn
3. Simon A. Levin
4. David J. T. Sumpter

Citations in the corpus

• A collective navigation hypothesis for homeward migration in anadromous salmonids (2016, background): “Homing pigeons return more efficiently when released as groups than they do as individuals (Biro et al. 2006; Dell’Ariccia et al. 2008), and birds with less information can benefit from following others (Flack et al.”