The Case for the Selfish Herd Hypothesis

Author: Viscido S.V.

Source: Comments® on Theoretical Biology, Volume 8, Number 6, November-December 2003 , pp. 665-684(20)

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Abstract:

The "selfish herd" hypothesis is a common explanation for why animals form groups. The hypothesis predicts that scattered individuals will form tightly packed aggregations when alerted to danger, and that the animals far from their nearest neighbors will be at higher risk of predation than those closely surrounded by neighbors. Despite testing by experimentation and computer simulation, many issues need to be resolved before we can conclude that the case for the selfish herd hypothesis has been made. In this article, I reexamine the original hypothesis, describe the theoretical and experimental efforts to grapple with it, and conclude with a list of major unresolved issues concerning the selfish herd concept.

Keywords: group geometry; predation risk; selfish herd; Voronoi tessellation

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Publication date: 2003-11-01

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