Herd refers to a social grouping of certain animals of the same species, either wild Wildness is literally the quality of being wild or untamed, but further to this, it has been defined as a quality produced in nature , as that which emerges from a forest (Micoud 1993), and as a level of achievement in nature (Cookson 2004). It differs from wilderness, which is a place where wildness occurs or domestic Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. A defining characteristic of domestication is artificial selection by humans. Some species such as the Asian Elephant, numerous members of which have for many centuries been used as, and also to the form of collective animal behavior Collective Animal Behavior describes the coordinated behavior of large groups of similar animals and the emergent properties of these groups. Facets of this topic include the costs and benefits of group membership, the transfer of information across the group, the group decision-making process, and group locomotion and synchronization. Studying associated with this (referred to as herding Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group , maintaining the group and moving the group from place to place—or any combination of those. While the layperson uses the term "herding", most individuals involved in the process term it mustering, "working stock" or droving) or as a verb, to herd, to its control by another species such as humans Humans, known taxonomically as Homo sapiens , are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. However, in some cases "human" is used to refer to any member of the genus Homo or dogs The dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working, hunting and companion animals in human history.
The term herd is generally applied to mammals, and most particularly to the grazing ungulates Ungulates are several groups of mammals, most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. They make up several orders of mammals, of which six to eight survive. There is some dispute as to whether Ungulata are a cladistic (evolution-based) group, or merely a phenetic group or folk taxon ( that classically display this behaviour. Different terms are used for similar groupings in other species; in the case of birds, for example, the word is flocking Flocking behavior is the behavior exhibited when a group of birds, called a flock, are foraging or in flight. There are parallels with the shoaling behavior of fish, or the swarming behavior of insects, but flock may also be used, in certain instances, for mammals, particularly sheep Domestic sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over 1 billion, domestic sheep are the most or goats The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of goat. Large groups of carnivores The diverse order Carnivora (pronounced /kɑrˈnɪvərə/ or sometimes /ˌkɑrnɪˈvɔərə/; from Latin carō "flesh", + vorāre "to devour") includes over 260 species of placental mammals. Its members are formally referred to as carnivorans, while the word "carnivore" (often popularly applied to members of this are usually called a packs Pack is a social group of conspecific canids. Not all species of canids - notably the red fox - form packs. Pack size and social behaviour within packs varies across species, and in nature a herd is classically subject to predation In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked). Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption. The other main from pack animals.
Special collective nouns In linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects, where objects can be people, animals, emotions, inanimate things, concepts, or other things. For example, in the phrase "a pride of lions," pride is a collective noun may be used for particular taxa (for example a flock of geese, if not in flight, is sometimes called a gaggle A gaggle is a term of venery for a flock of geese that isn't in flight; in flight, the group can be called a skein) but for theoretical discussions of behavioural ecology Ecology is the scientific study of the distributions, abundance and relations of organisms and their interactions with the environment. Ecology includes the study of plant and animal populations, plant and animal communities and ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization, the generic term herd can be used for all such kinds of assemblage.[citation needed]
The word herd, as a noun, can also refer to one who controls, possesses and has care for such groups of animals when they are domesticated. Examples of herds in this sense include shepherds Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool. Over the next millennia sheep and shepherding spread throughout Eurasia (who tend to sheep), goatherds A goatherd or a goatherder is a person who herds goats as a vocational activity. Similar to a fisherman who catches fish for a living, the drover here herds goats. Goatherds are popular in countries where goat populations are significant; for instance, in Africa and South Asia. Goats are typically bred as dairy or meat animals, with some breeds (who tend to goats), cowherds A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of special significance and legend. A subtype, called a (who tend cattle), and others.
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Why do animals herd?
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When an association of animals (or, by extension, people) is described as a "herd", the implication is that the group tends to act together (for example, all moving in the same direction at a given time), but that this does not occur as a result of planning or co-ordination. Rather, each individual is choosing behaviour that corresponds to that of the majority of other members, possibly through imitation or possibly because all are responding to the same external circumstances. A herd can be contrasted with a co-ordinated group where individuals have distinct roles. Many human groupings, such as army detachments or sports teams, show such co-ordination and differentiation of roles, but so do some animal groupings such as those of eusocial insects, which are co-ordinated through pheromones A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting outside the body of the secreting individual to impact the behavior of the receiving individual. There are alarm pheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many others that and other forms of animal communication Animal communication is any behavior on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, sometimes called Zoosemitics has played an important part in the methodology of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition.
Large groupings of birds in flight are generally referred to as a flockThe question of why animals group together is one of the most fundamental in sociobiology Sociobiology is a synthesis of scientific disciplines which attempts to explain social behavior in animal species by considering the Darwinian advantages specific behaviors may have. It is often considered a branch of biology and sociology, but also draws from ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics and other and behavioural ecology Behavioral ecology is the study of the ecological and evolutionary basis for animal behavior, and the roles of behavior in enabling an animal to adapt to its environment . Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen (a seminal figure in the study of animal behavior) outlined the four causes of behavior. As noted above, the term "herd" is most commonly used of grazing animals such as ungulates, and in these cases it is believed that the strongest selective pressure leading to herding rather than a solitary existence is protection against predators. There is clearly a tradeoff involved, since on the one hand a predator may hesitate to attack a large group of animals, while on the other a large group offers an easily detected target. It is generally believed that the most important protective factor is risk dilution - even if a predator attacks the herd, the risk for any individual that it will be the victim is greatly reduced. In the case of predators, it is often unclear whether the term "herd" is appropriate, since there may be some degree of co-ordination or role differentiation in group hunting. Predator groups are commonly smaller than grazing groups, since although a pack may be more effective at pulling down prey than a single animal, the prey then has to be shared between all members, so that the weaker animals will often be better off hunting smaller prey on their own.
The structure and size of herds
A herd is by definition relatively unstructured. However, there may be one or a few animals which tend to be imitated by the rest of the members of the herd more than others. An animal taking this role is called a "control animal", since its behaviour will predict that of the herd as a whole. It cannot be assumed, however, that the control animal is deliberately taking a leadership role. Control animals are not necessarily, or even usually, those that are socially dominant in conflict situations, though they frequently are. Group size Many animals, including humans, tend to live in groups, herds, flocks, bands, packs, shoals, or colonies of conspecific individuals. The size of these groups, as expressed by the number of participant individuals, is an important aspect of their social environment. Group size tend to be highly variable even within the same species, thus we often is an important characterestic of the social environment of gregarious species.
A Snow Goose The Snow Goose , also known as the Blue Goose, is a North American species of goose. Its name derives from the typically white plumage. The genus of this bird is disputed. The American Ornithologists' Union and BirdLife International place this species and the other "white" geese in the Chen genus, while other authorities place it in the gaggle may contain thousands.Domestic herds
Domestic animal herds are assembled by humans for practicality in raising them and controlling them. Their behaviour may be quite different from that of wild herds of the same or related species, since both their composition (in terms of the distribution of age and sex within the herd) and their history (in terms of when and how the individuals joined the herd) are likely to be very different.
A herd of goats The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of goat in the Greek HighlandsHuman parallels
The term herd is also applied metaphorically to human beings in social psychology Social psychology is the study of the relations between people and groups. Scholars in this interdisciplinary area are typically either psychologists or sociologists, though all social psychologists employ both the individual and the group as their units of analysis, with the concept of herd behaviour Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks, and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob violence and even. However both the term and concepts that underlie its use are controversial.
The term has acquired a semi-technical usage in behavioral finance Behavioral economics uses social, cognitive and emotional factors in understanding the economic decisions of individuals and institutions performing economic functions, including consumers, borrowers and investors, and their effects on market prices, returns and the resource allocation to describe the largest group of market investors The term has taken on a specific meaning in finance to describe the particular types of people and companies that regularly purchase equity or debt securities for financial gain in exchange for funding an expanding company. Less frequently, the term is applied to parties who purchase real estate, currency, commodity derivatives, personal property or market speculators In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum. Speculation typically involves the lending of money or the purchase of assets, equity or debt but in a manner that has not been given thorough analysis or is deemed to have low margin of safety or a who tend to 'move with the market,' or 'follow the general market trend.' This is at least a plausible example of genuine herding, though according to some researchers it results from rational decisions through processes such as information cascade An information cascade occurs when people observe the actions of others and then make the same choice that the others have made, independently of their own private information signals. Because it is usually sensible to do what other people are doing, the phenomenon is assumed to be the result of rational choice. Nevertheless, information cascades and rational expectations Rational expectations is a hypothesis in economics which states that agents' predictions of the future value of economically relevant variables, is not systematically wrong in that all errors are random. An alternative formulation is that rational expectations are model-consistent expectations, in that the agents inside the model assume the model'. Other researchers, however, ascribe it to non-rational process such as mimicry Mimicry is the similarity of one species to another which protects one or both. This similarity can be in appearance, behaviour, sound, scent and even location, with the mimics found in similar places to their models, fear and greed contagion Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John Cacioppo of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and,. "Contrarians" or contrarian investors In finance, a contrarian is one who attempts to profit by investing in a manner that differs from the conventional wisdom, when the consensus opinion appears to be wrong are those who deliberately choose to invest or speculate counter to the "herd".
See also
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Herds |
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Flocks |
- Stampede Associated with stampede behaviour are animals like humans, cattle, elephants, Blue Wildebeests, wild horses, and Rhinoceros
- Gaggle A gaggle is a term of venery for a flock of geese that isn't in flight; in flight, the group can be called a skein
- Herding Herding is the act of bringing individual animals together into a group , maintaining the group and moving the group from place to place—or any combination of those. While the layperson uses the term "herding", most individuals involved in the process term it mustering, "working stock" or droving
- Herd behavior Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks, and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob violence and even
- Herder A herder is a worker who lives a possibly semi-nomadic life, caring for various domestic animals, in places where these animals wander pasture lands
- Catalina Island buffalo herd
Categories: Ethology | Group processes
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Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:39:57 GMT+00:00
wtaq (WTAQ) - Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker says he would hire an independent auditor to keep tabs on Wisconsin's deer herd . ... GOP gubernatorial candidates take aim at deer herd management Superior Telegram
(Matt Franklin)
hu, 02 Sep 2010 17:16:52 GM
Week 1 college football predictions and odds for the Marshall Thundering . Herd. vs Ohio State Buckeyes. College football week 1 predictions have Ohio State -28.5 favorites in betting odds vs Marshall.
