Each month, the open access team of the University of Groningen Library (UB) puts a recent open access article by UG authors in the spotlight. This publication is highlighted via social media and the library’s newsletter and website.

The article in the spotlight for the month of April 2022 is titled Emergence of splits and collective turns in pigeon flocks under predation , written by Marina Papadopoulou, Hanno Hildenbrandt, Charlotte Hemelrijk (Faculty of Science and Engineering), Daniel Sankey (University of Exeter) and Steven Portugal (Royal Holloway, University of London).

Abstract

Complex patterns of collective behaviour may emerge through self-organization, from local interactions among individuals in a group. To understand what behavioural rules underlie these patterns, computational models are often necessary. These rules have not yet been systematically studied for bird flocks under predation. Here, we study airborne flocks of homing pigeons attacked by a robotic falcon, combining empirical data with a species-specific computational model of collective escape. By analysing GPS trajectories of flocking individuals, we identify two new patterns of collective escape: early splits and collective turns, occurring even at large distances from the predator. To examine their formation, we extend an agent-based model of pigeons with a ‘discrete’ escape manoeuvre by a single initiator, namely a sudden turn interrupting the continuous coordinated motion of the group. Both splits and collective turns emerge from this rule. Their relative frequency depends on the angular velocity and position of the initiator in the flock: sharp turns by individuals at the periphery lead to more splits than collective turns. We confirm this association in the empirical data. Our study highlights the importance of discrete and uncoordinated manoeuvres in the collective escape of bird flocks and advocates the systematic study of their patterns across species.

We asked first and corresponding author Marina Papadopoulou a few questions about the article:

Royal Society Open Science is an open access journal that also requires that authors make the primary data, materials and code publicly available. The whole review history is publicly available as well. Why did you choose to publish in this journal and what do you think of such (journal) policies?

I think that the open access policies of such journals should become the norm, given that they ensure good scientific conduct. In everyday research, aiming for publicly available data, materials and code improves the transparency and reproducibility of a study. Having the peer review history publicly available can contribute towards a fair and thorough review process. Additionally, when materials and code are publicly available, the validation of research output doesn’t stop at peer review; a paper's reproducibility can be assessed at any point. I think that these practices should be the norm of research and that, as scientists, our choice of where to publish should reflect this.

In our case, we were aiming for a journal with an interdisciplinary audience interested in both the biological and computational side of our paper. The journals of Royal Society are well established in our field and Royal Society Open Science has been recently publishing many papers on collective behaviour. It is also a relatively new journal that is fully open access. Thus, submitting our paper there felt like a good fit.  

To publish your article open access, the publisher charged an article processing charge (APC) of 1,440 euro. How did you pay for this, and what do you think of such a fee?

The article processing charge comes from our funding; it is included in the budget of the research grant from NWO awarded to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Charlotte Hemelrijk. NWO not only supports, but requires all publications that are output of their research grants to be available via open access, which is excellent. The open access fees vary a lot across journals and are often much higher in journals that have a hybrid model (where publications are by default not publicly available). I think that these high costs are very problematic, especially when it is not clear what they cover (and given the general issue on the profitability of the publishing industry) (1). I think scientists can play a role in changing this. For instance, consciously choosing journals with open access policies and denying the review of articles in journals behind paywalls (and stating the reason in the reply to a journal’s enquiry) may be a way towards this.

You analyzed GPS data of flocks of pigeons that were attacked by a remotely controlled robotic falcon. Is permission from an ethics committee necessary for using a robotic falcon like this? 

The GPS data analyzed in this study were collected by my collaborators Daniel Sankey and Rolf Storms and first published in the journal of Current Biology (2). Thus, for our publication in Royal Society Open Science no further assessment of the data collection was necessary. In general, deterring or disturbing wildlife does require specific protocols. In our case, the robotic falcon chased homing pigeons housed by our collaborators at the Royal Holloway University of London and thus the experimental protocol through which we acquired the GPS data was approved by the Royal Holloway University of London Ethical Review Board. Additionally, pigeons were weighted every day to assess their welfare, since large loss of weight can be an indicator for stress.

You are an active Twitter user . Why do you use Twitter to share your research? What role does Twitter play in your field? 

I find academic Twitter extremely valuable! By being connected with researchers in your field you can stay up to date with conferences, events, and new publications of many research groups without relying on email alerts from search engines. At the same time, you can increase the impact of your work and network. I know early career researchers that have established new collaborations solely through Twitter. Especially in my field (animal behaviour), academic Twitter is widely used to also promote job vacancies, that is an indicator of current and future projects in the field. Lastly, Twitter is also valuable for outreach, to connect research with the public, as well as for primary and secondary education. Open access is extremely important in this aspect since the majority of the non-expert audience won’t be able to connect through an institutional subscription.

Could you reflect on your experiences with open access and open science in general?

In my field of computational biology, open access has a tremendous effect on the impact and value of one’s work. Because it is not only the knowledge output of your research that is important but also the overall quality of your method and work ethic: students can reuse your code, your methods (e.g. computational models) can be validated, and other projects can be based on your work without having to ‘reinvent the wheel’ and thus accelerate scientific advancement. On a personal level, I find the process of others easily reusing my code for further research extremely rewarding.

However, preparing data and code to be open access is often a big time commitment, both at the stage of publication (e.g. dataset formatting, preparing documentation, understanding databases policies) and during research (keeping code clean, tidy and well documented, focusing on reproducibility and not only output). This can delay publication and it is unfortunately often not recognized or appreciated. This recognition is crucial to promote open science and get more people committed to it. In general, I believe that nowadays open access and open science are a requirement for scientific advancement; after all, shouldn’t the ‘giants’ have their shoulders available to all?

[1] Van Noorden, R. Open access: The true cost of science publishing. Nature 495, 426–429 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/495426a

[2] Sankey, D. W., Storms, R. F., Musters, R. J., Russell, T. W., Hemelrijk, C. K., & Portugal, S. J. Absence of “selfish herd” dynamics in bird flocks under threat. Current Biology, 31(14), 3192-3198. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.009

Useful links:

Marina Papadopoulou’s Twitter account

YouTube provides several movie clips of a robotic falcon in action, including a bird’s eye view.

Funder policies: Most research funding organizations require publications resulting from publicly funded grants to be published open access. Most funders allow article processing charges to be paid from grant money, although conditions apply. See this support page for more information about funder policies.

Citation:

Papadopoulou, M., Hildenbrandt, H., Sankey, D. W. E., Portugal, S. J., & Hemelrijk, C. K. (2022). Emergence of splits and collective turns in pigeon flocks under predation. Royal Society Open Science, 9(2). doi:10.1098/rsos.211898  

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