{"title":"The Impact of Different Degrees of Leadership on Collective Navigation in Follower-Leader Systems.","authors":"Sara Bernardi, Kevin J Painter","doi":"10.1007/s11538-025-01435-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In both animal and cell populations, the presence of leaders often underlies the success of collective migration processes, which we characterise by a group maintaining a cohesive configuration that consistently moves toward a target. We extend a recent non-local hyperbolic model for follower-leader systems to investigate different degrees of leadership. Specifically, we consider three levels of leadership: indifferent leaders, who do not alter their movement according to followers; observant leaders, who attempt to remain connected with the followers, but do not allow followers to affect their desired alignment; and persuadable leaders, who integrate their attempt to reach some target with the alignment of all neighbours, both followers and leaders. A combination of analysis and numerical simulations is used to investigate under which conditions each degree of leadership allows successful collective movement to a destination. We find that the indifferent leaders' strategy can result in a cohesive and target-directed migration only for short times. Observant and persuadable leaders instead provide robust guidance, showing that the optimal leader behavior depends on the connection between the migrating individuals: if alignment is low, greater follower influence on leaders is beneficial for successful guidance; otherwise, it can be detrimental and may generate various unsuccessful swarming dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":9372,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Mathematical Biology","volume":"87 5","pages":"64"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Bulletin of Mathematical Biology","FirstCategoryId":"100","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-025-01435-z","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In both animal and cell populations, the presence of leaders often underlies the success of collective migration processes, which we characterise by a group maintaining a cohesive configuration that consistently moves toward a target. We extend a recent non-local hyperbolic model for follower-leader systems to investigate different degrees of leadership. Specifically, we consider three levels of leadership: indifferent leaders, who do not alter their movement according to followers; observant leaders, who attempt to remain connected with the followers, but do not allow followers to affect their desired alignment; and persuadable leaders, who integrate their attempt to reach some target with the alignment of all neighbours, both followers and leaders. A combination of analysis and numerical simulations is used to investigate under which conditions each degree of leadership allows successful collective movement to a destination. We find that the indifferent leaders' strategy can result in a cohesive and target-directed migration only for short times. Observant and persuadable leaders instead provide robust guidance, showing that the optimal leader behavior depends on the connection between the migrating individuals: if alignment is low, greater follower influence on leaders is beneficial for successful guidance; otherwise, it can be detrimental and may generate various unsuccessful swarming dynamics.
期刊介绍:
The Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, the official journal of the Society for Mathematical Biology, disseminates original research findings and other information relevant to the interface of biology and the mathematical sciences. Contributions should have relevance to both fields. In order to accommodate the broad scope of new developments, the journal accepts a variety of contributions, including:
Original research articles focused on new biological insights gained with the help of tools from the mathematical sciences or new mathematical tools and methods with demonstrated applicability to biological investigations
Research in mathematical biology education
Reviews
Commentaries
Perspectives, and contributions that discuss issues important to the profession
All contributions are peer-reviewed.