The Emergence of Unshared Consensus Decisions in Bottlenose Dolphins

Source: arXiv Authors: David Lusseau, Larissa Conradt Date: 2009-03-04 Venue: later published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Key points

• Studies activity shifts in bottlenose dolphins to explain when a group follows one individual’s signal instead of making a shared decision.
• Finds that unshared consensus is useful when one individual has greater knowledge about the timing benefits of a decision than the rest of the group.
• In the observed case, some movement decisions were precipitated by signals from particular males or females, but not every transition required such leadership.
• The agent-design lesson is that temporary leadership can arise from information asymmetry rather than rank, and should be scoped to the decision where the asymmetry actually exists.