Individual decision-making and collective animal behavior

Individual decision-making and collective animal behavior

Author: PNAS April 21, 2025 Duration: 12:45
PNAS Science Sessions
Science

Individual decision-making and collective animal behavior

Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us.

In this episode, researchers explore advances in the modeling of collective animal behaviors.

In this episode, we cover:
•[00:00] Introduction
•[00:48] Conor Heins incorporated cognitive processes into a model of collective behavior.
•[02:13] Eva Kanso analyzed how confinement influences collective behavior.
•[03:41] Andreu Puy considered the role of speed in the leader-follower dynamics of schooling fish.
•[04:45] Daniel Kronauer explored how a colony of clonal raider ants collectively responds to rising temperatures.
•[06:02] Sonja Friman quantified the energy savings of starlings flying in complex formations.
•[07:27] Daniele Carlesso modeled how weaver ants decide to form chains to explore their environment.
•[08:43] Ashkaan Fahimipour explored how reef fish minimize the spread of misinformation.
•[10:11] Clare Doherty explored the individualism of terrestrial hermit crabs moving in groups.
•[11:44] Final thoughts and conclusion.

About Our Guests:
Conor Heins 
Machine Learning Researcher
Verses AI / Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Eva Kanso 
Zohrab A. Kaprielian Fellow in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
University of Southern California

Andreu Puy 
PhD Student
Polytechnic University of Catalonia

Daniel Kronauer 
Stanley S. and Sydney R. Shuman Professor
Rockefeller University

Sonja Friman 
Postdoctoral Fellow
Lund University

Daniele Carlesso 
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Konstanz

Ashkaan Fahimipour 
Assistant Professor
Florida Atlantic University

Clare Doherty 
Research Associate
Ulster University

View related content here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2320239121
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2406293121
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2309733121
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2123076119
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2319971121
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2216217120
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2215428120
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-11469-1

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Tune into PNAS Science Sessions for a direct line to the people shaping modern science. Produced by PNAS, this podcast offers more than just summaries of published research; it’s where you hear the candid, often personal stories behind the headlines. Each episode features concise conversations with the researchers themselves-from emerging voices to established Academy members-alongside the policymakers whose decisions are informed by this work. You’ll get a genuine sense of the questions that drive these experts, the unexpected hurdles they face in their labs and field studies, and why their findings matter right now. The scope is deliberately wide, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of science itself, covering discoveries that range from microscopic processes to planetary-scale phenomena. This isn't about dry lectures, but about capturing the human endeavor of investigation. For anyone curious about how science actually unfolds and wants to understand the context of breakthroughs as they happen, this podcast serves as an essential, engaging resource. It connects the dots between a published paper in a prestigious journal and the real-world implications that ripple out from it.
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