To be or not to be social: foraging associations of free-ranging dogs in an urban ecosystem

Abstract

Canids display a wide diversity of social systems, from solitary to pairs to packs, and hence they have been extensively used as model systems to understand social dynamics in natural systems.Among canids, the dog can show various levels of social organization due to the influence of humans on their lives. Though the dog is known as man's best friend and has been studied extensively as a pet, studies on the natural history, ecology and behaviour of dogs in a natural habitat are rare. Here we report results of an extensive population-level study conducted through one-time censuses in urban India to understand the ecoethology of free-ranging dogs. We built a model to test if the observed groups could have been formed through random associations while foraging. Our modeling results suggest that the dogs, like all efficient scavengers, tend to forage singly but also form random uncorrelated groups. A closer inspection of the group compositions however reveals that the foraging associations are non-random events. The tendency of adults to associate with the opposite sex in the mating season and of juveniles to stay close to adults in the non-mating season drives the population towards aggregation, in spite of the apparently random nature of the group size distribution. Hence we conclude that to be or not to be social is a matter of choice for the free-ranging dogs, and not a matter of chance.

Importance of a species’ socioecology: Wolves outperform dogs in a conspecific cooperation task

“…Wolves live in tight-knit family groups that strongly rely on cooperation for hunting, pup-rearing, and territorial defense (13)(14)(15). In contrast, studies of free-ranging dogs [which form 80% of the world-dog population (16,17)] show that, although group hunting can occur, foraging is mostly carried out solitarily on human refuse (18,19) and that there is little allomaternal care of pups (20)(21)(22). Indeed cooperation in free-living dogs appears to be largely limited to territorial defense (23,24).…”

Free-ranging dogs are capable of comprehending complex human pointing cues

“…Free-ranging dogs are found in most of the developing countries and live without direct human supervision 31 . They are primarily scavengers depending on human leftover food but also display occasional begging from humans 32,33 . Apart from receiving positive responses (food, social petting etc.…”

“Bolder” together – response to human social cues in free-ranging dogs

“…Free-ranging dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) are an excellent model system to evaluate the impact of interspecific interactions with humans in ecologically relevant contexts. These dogs regularly interact with humans in all possible human habitations in most of the developing countries (Sen Majumder et al, 2014; Vanak and Gompper, 2009). They substantially differ from pet dogs in terms of human socialisation, which in turn affects their learning ability (Brubaker et al, 2017; Brubaker et al, 2019, in press ).…”

“…Such flexibility in group size might have evolved as a by-product of foraging ecology and competition, but the underlying dynamics at the population level are yet to be understood. Foraging associations in free-ranging dogs are dynamic and can vary over different seasons, primarily driven by social needs (Sen Majumder et al, 2014). The social groups show interesting cooperation-conflict dynamics, with the presence of alloparenting by both related females and males on the one hand and mother-offspring conflict and milk theft on the other (Paul et al, 2014; Paul et al, 2015).…”