Many migratory animals travel in large social groups. Large, avian migrants that fly in V-formations were proposed do so for energy saving by the use of up-wash by following individuals and regularly change leadership. As groups have been rather homogeneous in previous work, we aimed to explore leadership and its flight mechanics consequences in an extremely heterogeneous case of social migration, namely in spring migration of goose families. In families the experience of group members differs strongly and inclusive fitness may be important. We successfully collected overlapping spring migration tracking data of a complete family of greater white-fronted geese Anser a. albifrons and extracted leadership, flapping frequency and wind conditions in flight. Our data revealed V-formations where one parent was flying in front at all times. Although the father led the family group most of the time, he did not flap at higher frequency while doing so. In contrast, the mother flapped faster when leading, possibly because she experienced less supportive wind conditions than when the father led. We argue that in heterogeneous, social groups leadership might be fixed and not costly if supportive environmental conditions like wind can be used.

中文翻译：

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鹅父母领衔迁徙V

许多迁徙动物在大型社会群体中旅行。建议以 V 形编队飞行的大型鸟类迁徙者通过跟随个人并定期更换领导层使用上冲来节省能源。由于群体在以前的工作中相当同质，我们的目标是在极其异质的社会迁移案例中探索领导力及其飞行力学后果，即鹅家庭的春季迁移。在家庭中，团体成员的体验差异很大，包容性健身可能很重要。我们成功收集了一个完整的大白额雁 Anser a 家族的重叠春季迁徙跟踪数据。albifrons 和提取的领导力、扑翼频率和飞行中的风况。我们的数据显示了 V 形编队，其中一位父母一直在前面飞行。虽然父亲大部分时间都在带领家族，但他这样做的频率并没有更高。相比之下，母亲在带领时拍打得更快，这可能是因为与父亲带领时相比，她经历的支持性风力条件较少。我们认为，在异质性的社会群体中，如果可以使用风等支持性环境条件，领导力可能是固定的，而且成本不高。