Leadership, personality and social feedback

In a recent paper, we showed that leadership arises from individual behavioral differences in pairs of foraging stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Foraging data from randomly combined pairs of fish were analyzed using Markov Chain models to infer the individual movement rules underlying joint behavior. Whilst both fish responded to partner movement, bolder individuals were the least responsive and showed greater individual initiative. Shy partners were more faithful followers and were also found to bring about greater leadership tendencies in their bold partners. The ability of such followers to inspire bolder fish suggests that leadership may be dependent on individual temperament differences, reinforced by social feedback.