Collective behaviour across animal species

Abstract

We posit a new geometric perspective to define, detect, and classify inherent patterns of collective behaviour across a variety of animal species. We show that machine learning techniques, and specifically the isometric mapping algorithm, allow the identification and interpretation of different types of collective behaviour in five social animal species. These results offer a first glimpse at the transformative potential of machine learning for ethology, similar to its impact on robotics, where it enabled robots to recognize objects and navigate the environment.