The huge groups take off in sync, but only when the majority wants to do so.
Hundreds or even thousands of jackdaws are known to launch into the winter skies at once from the treetops. Now, ecologists know that this synchronized exodus is timed with a sophisticated behavior called “consensus decision-making,” where the group’s majority chooses the birds’ actions., pitch into the sky in huge numbers come sunrise and then split into smaller groups to feed throughout the day.
The gregarious birds prefer to leave as a group, although “each jackdaw will have a slightly different preference about when they want to leave, based on factors like their size and hunger,” Alex Dibnah, a University of Exeter graduate student and lead author of the study, said in a. “Leaving the roost together has various benefits, including safety from predators and access to information such as where to find food.
This research shows the critical role vocalizations play in group decision-making for this species. One next step for this research, according to the authors, is to figure out how human-created noise pollution might affect this process and the spread of information throughout these communities.“If the birds can’t hear each other and can’t form a consensus to leave together, it could have big impacts on their population.”Hannah Seo is a science contributor at Popular Science.
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