Why do some groups adopt a collective 'many-eyes' approach to vigilance, while in others sentinels keep watch for all? Our paper, led by @charliepilgrim.bsky.social, shows the shape of the cost function determines the optimal strategy. @templetonworld.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Many-eyes and sentinels in selfish and cooperative groups | PNAS

Collective vigilance describes how animals in groups benefit from the predator detection efforts of others. Empirical observations typically find e...

pnas.org

Our (with @plewin.bsky.social) @currentbiology.bsky.social Dispatches is out today (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...). Covering two recent papers about bird eye movements during flight, using homing pigeons as model species.

Excited to announce that my first paper is out now in @plosone.org! A huge thanks to my co-author @dorabiro.bsky.social. Check out our work on how conventions emerge in human dyads here: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Experimental emergence of conventions in human dyads

Conventions can be defined as arbitrary and self-sustaining practices that emerge in a population and facilitate solving coordination problems. A recent study traced the formation of simple convention...

journals.plos.org

Very excited to present this work tomorrow @isbe2026.bsky.social !!!

Joe Morford@morfjoe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The WISDOM OF CROWDS emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds! Excited to share our work published by @aaas.org in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Big congrats to @morfjoe.bsky.social on this exciting new paper in Science Advances! We provide evidence that larger flocks of migratory birds navigate more accurately toward their target direction than smaller ones

Joe Morford@morfjoe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The WISDOM OF CROWDS emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds! Excited to share our work published by @aaas.org in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Really pleased to see this paper out! We show that collective intelligence emerges in wild birds, using radar traces from flocks of migratory hirundines. Many wild social animals might benefit from similar processes, but we could also see Allee effects as migratory populations decline.

Joe Morford@morfjoe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The WISDOM OF CROWDS emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds! Excited to share our work published by @aaas.org in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Great to see this one published! Worth a read if you’re into the role of collective behaviour in migration 🦅🌍 Very pleased how it came out, glad to be a (very) small part of it.

Joe Morford@morfjoe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The WISDOM OF CROWDS emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds! Excited to share our work published by @aaas.org in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

The WISDOM OF CROWDS emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds! Excited to share our work published by @aaas.org in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

The wisdom of crowds emerges in flocks of thousands of migrating songbirds

Larger flocks of migrating songbirds orient more accurately toward their population’s migratory direction than smaller flocks.

doi.org

Check out this work on navigation in shearwaters! These seabirds navigate long distances to forage and migrate, but here we focus on their navigation around their breeding islands, finding that birds could distinguish shorter routes home despite relatively small differences in travel distances!

Lewis Lancaster@lewislancaster.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🥳 New paper alert 🥳 The first of the data chapters from my DPhil, and the works from my first few field seasons on Skomer, is out! "Shearwaters make efficient navigational decisions, even at very fine scales" - doi.org/10.1242/jeb.... A huge thank you to everyone involved 🩵

🥳 New paper alert 🥳 The first of the data chapters from my DPhil, and the works from my first few field seasons on Skomer, is out! "Shearwaters make efficient navigational decisions, even at very fine scales" - doi.org/10.1242/jeb.... A huge thank you to everyone involved 🩵

Shearwaters make efficient navigational decisions, even at very fine scales

Summary: A fine-scale displacement of Manx shearwaters, a wide-ranging pelagic seabird, reveals that they preferentially adopt shorter homing routes following release at proximal sites, demonstrating ...

doi.org

Can chimpanzees prepare for mutually exclusive possibilities individually or collectively? Check out our new paper in Phil Trans @royalsociety.org, led by @drelizabethwarren.bsky.social, and funded by @templetonworld.bsky.social! And stay tuned for the next paper, clarifying the mechanism!

Elizabeth Warren@drelizabethwarren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper alert! 📢 Out now, fully #openaccess, in a special issue of Phil Trans on the evolution of collective intelligence (1/4) royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Check out our new paper on logical reasoning in chimpanzees, led by @drelizabethwarren.bsky.social!!

Chimpanzees spontaneously prepare for mutually exclusive possibilities, and collective context strengthens this behaviour

Abstract. In both humans and non-human animals, collectives can sometimes overcome individual cognitive biases or shortcomings to execute more rational beh

royalsocietypublishing.org

New paper alert! 📢 Out now, fully #openaccess, in a special issue of Phil Trans on the evolution of collective intelligence (1/4) royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Chimpanzees spontaneously prepare for mutually exclusive possibilities, and collective context strengthens this behaviour

Abstract. In both humans and non-human animals, collectives can sometimes overcome individual cognitive biases or shortcomings to execute more rational beh

royalsocietypublishing.org

New theme issue of #PhilTransB: The evolution of collective intelligence. Read #OA: buff.ly/f0gWUxH

Intelligent agents can still take irrational actions and, sometimes, groups of animals are better at making good decisions than their constituent individuals. Read the latest article from the TWCF-funded project, “Rationality and Reason beyond the Individual“ project below.

Chris Krupenye@chriskrupenye.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Does being in a collective buffer against individual forgetting, when it comes to navigation? New paper by Joe Morford: we find that collectives of homing pigeons remember their routes better than individuals @dorabiro.bsky.social @richardpmann.bsky.social Thanks to @templetonworld.bsky.social !

Migrated to Bluesky as I'm excited to share our new paper on collective route memories in homing pigeons: rdcu.be/e73Qk We found flocks remembered old routes better than pigeons flying alone, likely because different birds remembered different parts of the route!

Does being in a collective buffer against individual forgetting, when it comes to navigation? New paper by Joe Morford: we find that collectives of homing pigeons remember their routes better than individuals @dorabiro.bsky.social @richardpmann.bsky.social Thanks to @templetonworld.bsky.social !

Richard Mann@richardpmann.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Collective wisdom emerges in pigeons through forgetting randomly-different information over time doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Collective wisdom emerges in pigeons through forgetting randomly-different information over time doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Collective route memories emerge through differential forgetting of navigational information in homing pigeons - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Collective route memories emerge through differential forgetting of navigational information in homing pigeons

doi.org

You’ve probably heard of collective intelligence but what about collective memory? 🧠🐘 New paper in press, led by Joe Morford! We investigated whether collective decision making in pigeons can rescue long-term memory of learned homing routes 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Collective route memories emerge through differential forgetting of navigational information in homing pigeons - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Collective route memories emerge through differential forgetting of navigational information in homing pigeons

nature.com