Collective motion: Influence of local behavioural interactions among individuals

Fascinating patterns are displayed in nature due to the collective coherent motion of many living organisms. The origin of collective behaviours is diverse as the group members benefit in various ways: large resources of food, mating choices, nesting, and protection from predators, to name a few. It is still not well understood how complex behaviours emerge from a collective group that are otherwise not displayed at the level of solitary individuals. In recent years, along with field studies, numerous theoretical approaches have been developed to obtain insights into the mechanisms of aggregations and the collective decision-making processes. This brief review focuses on the self-propelled particle models, which have played a significant role in deciphering the underlying dynamics of collective motion in various organisms. Here, we discuss how local behavioural interactions and coordinations among the individual members give rise to complex collective behaviours. We consider the examples of collective motion in the schooling of fishes, flocking of birds, and swarming of prey, and address the emergence of a variety of patterns, a transition from disorder to ordered motion, and survival chances of prey group when under predator attacks.