| Collectively feeding homing pigeons were filmed to introduce new methods for a computer vision based analysis of dominance hierarchy. The quantitative analysis of automatically extracted trajectories was complemented by the detection of dominance-induced events. Motion patterns were analyzed with novel, fully automated correlation-based methods to derive dominance-related parameters. The results of the automated methods were verified by a "pecking order" obtained from computer-aided manual identification of social interactions. The dominance structures were compared with various physical parameters and with the airborne leadership role of the birds extracted from their performance during flock flights. |
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