Figure 8.

The proportion of birds in a flock that have landed as a function of time and of interdependence between neighbouring birds (after Bhattacharya & Vicsek [83]). If the interdependence factor between birds J is zero, all birds land independently of each other at their optimal times (solid line). If the interdependence factor is medium (dashed line) or large (dotted line), the landing slope is steeper and the flock's landing is much more synchronized. However, the larger the interdependence factor J, the later the average landing time (see main text for further details).