But can it also be people in cults?

There is definitely a focus on non-human organisms given that we are a biology department.

Human cults, at least those which last a while, tend to have an obvious authority structure akin to management of a business, and the mystery is more about decoding extreme individual obedience or belief. Very different from mutually beneficial collective flocks with no obvious leader.

Also cults exemplify coerced behavior, not collective behavior like flicks or birds or swarms of insects. Not the same.