“…Given that there is a great complexity in the environments in which grouping takes place, producing null expectations of grouping patterns should take as a starting point a spatially-explicit description of the environment inhabited by a species. Spatial analysis is a mature field that offers many tools useful to socioecologists for describing how resources (e.g., food, watering holes, sleeping sites) or predation risk vary in space and time (Dale, Dixon, Fortin, Legendre, Myers, and Rosenberg 2002;Fortin, Dale, and van Hoef 2002 Subsequently, deviation from what is predicted from these first principles can be analyzed to understand the relevant factors that, in addition to environmental variation, influence grouping patterns and social relationships. Some of these deviations will not lead too far (e.g., sleeping sites could physically constrain spatial dispersion), while others could be fascinating (e.g., quantitative descriptions of how alternative social strategies, such as infanticide avoidance, might influence grouping).…”