Outline of a probabilistic approach to animal sociology: III

Abstract

The probabilities of the emergence of the two kinds of social structure in a 3-bird flock (chain and cycle) are deduced under the assumption of certain biases acting on the social dynamics of the flock. In particular a bias against the reversal of peck order and a bias against encounters of individuals of disparate social rank are considered. Like-wise a distribution of an “inherent” fighting ability is considered which influences the outcomes of encounters. A functional relation is derived between the importance of this ability and the initial probability of a chain structure.