Abstract
In group-living species, decisions made by individuals may result in collective behaviours. A central question in understanding collective behaviours is how individual variation in phenotype affects collective behaviours. However, how the personality of individuals affects collective decisions in groups remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the role of boldness on the decision-making process in different-sized groups of barnacle geese. Naive barnacle geese, differing in boldness score, were introduced in a labyrinth in groups with either one or three informed demonstrators. The demonstrators possessed information about the route through the labyrinth. In pairs, the probability of choosing a route prior to the informed demonstrator increased with increasing boldness score: bolder individuals decided more often for themselves where to go compared with shyer individuals, whereas shyer individuals waited more often for the demonstrators to decide and followed this information. In groups of four individuals, however, there was no effect of boldness on decision-making, suggesting that individual differences were less important with increasing group size. Our experimental results show that personality is important in collective decisions in pairs of barnacle geese, and suggest that bolder individuals have a greater influence over the outcome of decisions in groups.
Highlights
The benefits of group living for individual group members are well established and include reduced predation risk and increased sharing of information [1]
As expected, the probability of moving first increased with increasing boldness score, this effect was dependent on the number of geese: in pairs of geese boldness affected decision-making, whereas in groups of four individuals there was no effect of boldness
There is little known about the extent to which personality affects collective decision-making
Summary
The benefits of group living for individual group members are well established and include reduced predation risk and increased sharing of information [1]. We introduced naive barnacle geese together with either one or three informed individuals (all of intermediate boldness level) in a labyrinth and studied the decision-making process in these groups (i.e. whether naive individuals decided where to go for themselves).
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