Data from: Potential leaders trade off goal-oriented and socially-oriented behavior in mobile animal groups

Leadership is widespread across the animal kingdom. In self-organizing groups, such as fish schools, theoretical models predict that effective leaders need to balance goal-oriented motion, such as towards a known resource, with their tendency to be social. Increasing goal-orientation is predicted to increase decision speed and accuracy, but increases the risk of the group splitting. To test these key predictions, we trained fish (golden shiners, Notemigonus crysoleucas) to associate a spatial target with a food reward ('informed' individuals) before testing each singly with a group of eight untrained fish who were uninformed ('naïve') about the target. Informed fish that exhibited faster and straighter paths (indicative of greater goal-orientation) were more likely to reach their preferred target, and did so more quickly. However, such behavior was associated with a tendency to leave untrained fish behind, therefore failing to transmit their preference to others. Either all or none of the untrained fish stayed with the trained fish in the majority of trials. Using a simple model of self-organized coordination and leadership in groups we recreate these features of leadership observed experimentally, including the apparent consensus behavior among naïve individuals. Effective leadership thus requires informed individuals to appropriately balance goal-oriented and socially-oriented behavior.领导力在动物界广泛存在。在自组织群体（self-organizing groups）如鱼群（fish schools）中，理论模型预测，高效的领导者需要在目标导向运动（例如朝向已知资源的移动）与社交倾向之间取得平衡。提升目标导向性可加快决策速度、提升决策准确性，但会增大群体分裂的风险。为验证这些核心预测，我们以金体美鳊（golden shiners，Notemigonus crysoleucas）为实验对象，先训练其将空间目标与食物奖励建立关联，这类个体被称为“知情个体（informed individuals）”；随后将每条受训个体与8只未接受训练、不了解目标的“天真个体（naïve individuals）”组成的群体进行单独测试。表现出更快更直运动路径（体现更高目标导向性）的知情个体，更有可能抵达其偏好的目标，且抵达速度更快。然而，这类行为会伴随将未受训练个体甩在身后的倾向，因此无法将自身的偏好传递给其他个体。在大多数试验中，未受训练的个体要么全部跟随受训个体，要么完全不跟随。我们通过构建群体自组织协调与领导力的简单模型，复现了实验中观察到的领导力特征，包括天真个体间的表观共识行为。综上，高效的领导力需要知情个体在目标导向行为与社交导向行为之间做出恰当权衡。