ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
It pays to follow the leader: Metabolic cost of flight is lower for trailing birds in small groups.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The study of social animal migrations: a synthesis of the past and guidelines for future research.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Pooled it
- Flight energetics of barn swallows across speeds: high aerodynamic efficiency, but low energy conversion efficiency.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- A minimal wake-vortex model explains formation flight of flapping birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Pigeons in a flock go cheap: a re-evaluation of the energetics of flying in cluster flocks.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Why collective behaviours self-organize to criticality: a primer on information-theoretic and thermodynamic utility measures.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Small energy benefits of in-wake flying in long-duration migratory flights.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Many bird species commonly aggregate in flocks for reasons ranging from predator defense to navigation. Available evidence suggests that certain types of flocks-the V and echelon formations of large birds-may provide a benefit that reduces the aerodynamic cost of flight, whereas cluster flocks typical of smaller birds may increase flight costs. However, metabolic flight costs have not been directly measured in any of these group flight contexts [Zhang and Lauder,
Indexed as
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.