Collective Behaviour

Movement Ecology is calling for submissions to our Collection on 'Collective Behaviour' 

Coordinated spatio-temporal patterns of groups of organisms have been observed across all taxa from aquatic to terrestrial and aerial species. By using information that is only transient and limited in space, individual animals manage to coordinate their actions to achieve a common goal across much larger scales and hierarchical levels. The emergence of these ordered or partially ordered structures in space and time from the movement and interactions of the individuals is a hallmark of animal collective behaviour and is an exciting area of research at the interface of ethology, applied mathematics, physics and robotics. By bringing observational data with an ever increasing number and resolution, tracking technologies have had an important role in the growth of collective behavioural studies, providing opportunities for a deeper understanding of the underlying sensorial and cognitive mechanisms, but also for novel directions to explore. This special collection aims to capture the latest developments in the collective behaviour of organisms by covering the state-of-the-art theoretical and empirical techniques as well as to provide a forum for a synthesis across species.