Communicative and Cognitive Underpinnings of Animal Group Movement

Fischer, Julia; Zinner, Dietmar

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-15355-6_13

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…In other baboon species (Rendall et al 1999; Meise et al 2011), they are typically given as a signal of “benign intent” (Cheney and Seyfarth 1997) when one animal approaches another to engage in sociopositive behavior. They may also function as “contact calls” when animals are initiating a move (Fischer and Zinner 2011) or while traveling (Rendall et al 1999; Meise et al 2011). For all experiments, we used naturally occurring sequences of eight to 12 grunts which were matched for duration (≈4 s); Fig.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social monitoring in a multilevel society: a playback study with male Guinea baboons

Maciej

Patzelt

Ndao³

et al. 2012

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Keeping track of social interactions among conspecifics is a driving force for the evolution of social cognition. How social cognition, such as social knowledge, ties in with a species' social organization is, however, largely unexplored. We investigated the social knowledge of wild Guinea baboons (Papio papio) ranging in Senegal, a species that lives in a fluid multilevel society with overlapping habitat use. Using playback experiments, we tested how adult males differentiate between subjects from their own vs. a neighboring or a stranger social unit (“gang”) and assessed ranging patterns with Global Positioning System (GPS) data. While territorial species usually differentiate between group and nongroup members and often respond more strongly to strangers than neighbors (the “dear enemy” effect), subjects in this highly tolerant species should largely ignore other unit members and mainly attend to subjects from their own unit. Males responded strongly after playback of calls recorded from members of their own gang, while they attended only briefly to neighbor or stranger calls. Apparently, males benefit from monitoring the social maneuvers in their own social unit, while it remains to be resolved whether they are unmotivated or unable to keep track of the identities and actions of individuals outside their own gang. The study highlights how the allocation of social attention is tuned to the specifics of a species' social organization, while a complex social organization does not necessarily translate into the need for more elaborate social knowledge.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social monitoring in a multilevel society: a playback study with male Guinea baboons

Maciej

Patzelt

Ndao³

et al. 2012

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…Inadvertent social cues provide a second source of social information. Cues are considered to reflect more directly the physiological or morphological state of an individual (Fischer and Zinner 2011a). Thus, cues are not emitted with the purpose of presenting social information and influencing others' behavior, but do so inadvertently.…”

Section: Information Transmission When Making the Movementioning

confidence: 99%

Where Next? Group Coordination and Collective Decision Making by Primates

2011

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Primate groups need to remain coordinated in their activities and collectively decide when and where to travel if they are to accrue the benefits and minimize the costs of sociality. The achievement of coordinated activity and group decision making therefore has important implications for individual survival and reproduction. The aim of this special issue is to bring together a collection of empirical, theoretical, and commentary articles by primatologists studying this rapidly expanding topic. In this article, we introduce the contributions within the special issue and provide a background to the topic. We begin by focusing on decisions that involve a collective transition between a resting and a moving state, a transition we term making the move. We examine whether specific predeparture behaviors seen during transitions represent intentional processes or more simple response facilitation. Next we classify decisions according to the contribution of individual group members, and describe how, and why, certain individuals can have a disproportionate influence over group-mates' behavior. We then review how primate groups make decisions on the move. In particular, we focus on how variability in group size and spatial organization helps or hinders information transmission and coordination. We end with a discussion of new tools and methodology that will allow future investigators to address some outstanding questions in primate coordination and decision-making research. We conclude that a better integration of concepts and terminology, along with a focus on how individuals integrate environmental and social information, will be critical to developing a satisfactory understanding of collective patterns of behavior in primate systems.

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“…The distinction that we make above between groups with differentiated social relationships and aggregations in which members are broadly undifferentiated (and therefore no or few stable relationships exist) can be linked to the distinction between local and global communication (Camazine et al 2001, Conradt and Roper 2005, Ballerini et al 2008, Ramseyer et al 2009, Nagy et al 2010, Fischer and Zinner 2011). In small groups, individuals can develop and maintain stable social relationships with all group members, and can similarly communicate with them by sending information, but also by receiving and processing it, representing a situation where global communication is possible.…”

Section: Information Acquisition and Transfermentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective decision‐making and fission–fusion dynamics: a conceptual framework

Sueur

King

Conradt

et al. 2011

Oikos

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182

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Sociality exists in an extraordinary range of ecological settings. For individuals to accrue the benefi ts associated with social interactions, they are required to maintain a degree of spatial and temporal coordination in their activities, and make collective decisions. Such coordination and decision-making has been the focus of much recent research. However, eff orts largely have been directed toward understanding patterns of collective behaviour in relatively stable and cohesive groups. Less well understood is how fi ssion -fusion dynamics mediate the process and outcome of collective decisions making. Here, we aim to apply established concepts and knowledge to highlight the implications of fi ssion -fusion dynamics for collective decisions, presenting a conceptual framework based on the outcome of a small-group discussion INCORE meeting (funded by the European Community ' s Sixth Framework Programme). First, we discuss how the degree of uncertainty in the environment shapes social fl exibility and therefore the types of decisions individuals make in diff erent social settings. Second, we propose that the quality of social relationships and the energetic needs of each individual infl uence fi ssion decisions. Th ird, we explore how these factors aff ect the probability of individuals to fuse. Fourth, we discuss how group size and fi ssionfusion dynamics may aff ect communication processes between individuals at a local or global scale to reach a consensus or to fi ssion. Finally, we off er a number of suggestions for future research, capturing emerging ideas and concepts on the interaction between collective decisions and fi ssion -fusion dynamics.

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Communicative and Cognitive Underpinnings of Animal Group Movement

Cited by 10 publications

References 57 publications

Social monitoring in a multilevel society: a playback study with male Guinea baboons

Social monitoring in a multilevel society: a playback study with male Guinea baboons

Where Next? Group Coordination and Collective Decision Making by Primates

Collective decision‐making and fission–fusion dynamics: a conceptual framework

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