The larger a shoal is, the smaller is the proportion of it that needs to know what is actually going on

From Follow My Leader from The Economist.

HUMAN beings like to think of themselves as the animal kingdom’s smartest alecks. It may come as a surprise to some, therefore, that Iain Couzin of Princeton University believes they have something to learn from lesser creatures that move about in a large crowd. As he told the AAAS meeting in Washington, DC, groups of animals often make what look like wise decisions, even when most of the members of those groups are ignorant of what is going on.

[snip]

He discovered that leadership is extremely efficient. The larger a shoal is, the smaller is the proportion of it that needs to know what is actually going on for it to feed and avoid predation effectively. Indeed, having too many leaders with conflicting opinions results in confusion. At least, that is true in the model. He is now testing it in reality.

Read the whole thing. Speculative still, but interesting.

If accurate, it would seem to emulate the pricing mechanism and Hayek's Problem of Knowledge. Certainly at a macro level, the more trade there is, and the freer that trade is, the more participants none of whom know any material fraction of the whole process but for whom the pricing mechanism allows the collective group to optimize outcomes.