Self-organization of collective escape in pigeon flocks
Fig 5
Distance-dependency in simulated flocks with and without predator avoidance.
(A) The angle of the flock members’ headings relative to the predator’s at each distance-cluster. The boxes include the 50% of the distribution and the horizontal line shows its median. When pigeon-agents react to the predator, the measurement increases showing that the flock is turning away from the predator. (B) The frequency that the escape-direction of each flock-member is changing direction (Eq 7). The height of each bar shows the mean value of all individuals per distance cluster and the error bar shows one standard deviation above this mean. The escape direction remains more stable when the flock is turning away from the predator. (C) Consensus in escape direction across a flock at each sampling point (Eq 8). More flock members have the same escape direction closer to the predator in simulations with predator-avoidance.