Pigeon leadership hierarchies are not dependent on environmental contexts or individual phenotypes

• Published in: Behavioural processes Vol. 198; p. 104629
• Main Authors: Sankey, Daniel W.E., Biro, Dora, Ricketts, Rhianna L., Shepard, Emily L.C., Portugal, Steven J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-05-2022
• Subjects: Animals; Biologger; Boldness; Columba livia; Columbidae; Dominance; Flight, Animal; GPS - should all be in capitals; Homing Behavior; Leadership; Neophobia; Personality; Phenotype; Speed; Speed; Biologger; Columba livia; Dominance; Personality; Neophobia; Boldness; GPS - should all be in capitals
• ISSN: 0376-6357; 1872-8308
• DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104629

Remaining cohesive on the move can be beneficial for animal groups. As such, animal groups have evolved coordination mechanisms such as leadership to resolve navigational conflicts of interest. Consistent “leaders” may have an intrinsic advantage over “followers” which compromise on their preferred route to retain cohesion, which highlights the question of the inter-individual variation (phenotype) that can predict leadership. Studies in both birds and fish have revealed that intrinsically faster individuals can lead movements, and leading movements propagate from the front edge of the flock/shoal. However, these experiments are generally conducted in relatively “familiar” environments, where the degree of compromise between the “leaders” and “followers” is low. We suggested that inter-individual differences in route efficiency, while not explanatory of leadership from familiar locations, may emerge as predictors of leadership from unfamiliar locations. We tested this prediction – and the potential impact of multiple other behavioral, morphological and “in-flight” phenotypes on leadership – using two groups of homing pigeons (Columba livia) (N = 16), a classic model species of leadership. We recorded N = 966 unique GPS trajectories from birds in (i) solo and familiar, and (ii) solo and unfamiliar contexts to measure solo speed and solo route efficiency; and (iii) group and familiar, and (iv) group and unfamiliar contexts to assess group leadership. Pigeon leadership hierarchies were similar across environmental context (i.e., familiarity). However, we found that no covariates could consistently predict leadership score in either context.
•We evaluated the relationship between personality, dominance and morphology, and leadership consistency in homing pigeons.•We flew homing pigeon flocks over familiar (flown numerous times) and unfamiliar (never been released there before) routes, to determine if different behavioral phenotypic traits favored leadership under the two contexts.•None of the measured traits consistently predicted leadership, in either the familiar or unfamiliar scenario.•Leadership was consistent between the unfamiliar and familiar routes, suggesting leadership is not context dependent.