Social effects on foraging behavior and success depend on local environmental conditions
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Marshall, Harry H.; Carter, Alecia J.; Ashford, Alexandra; Rowcliffe, J. Marcus; Cowlishaw, Guy
Description
In social groups, individuals' dominance rank, social bonds, and kinship with other group members have been shown to influence their foraging behavior. However, there is growing evidence that the particular effects of these social traits may also depend on local environmental conditions. We investigated this by comparing the foraging behavior of wild chacma baboons, Papio ursinus, under natural conditions and in a field experiment where food was spatially clumped. Data were collected from 55...[Show more]
dc.contributor.author | Marshall, Harry H. | |
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dc.contributor.author | Carter, Alecia J. | |
dc.contributor.author | Ashford, Alexandra | |
dc.contributor.author | Rowcliffe, J. Marcus | |
dc.contributor.author | Cowlishaw, Guy | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2015-08-11T04:13:22Z | |
dc.date.available | 2015-08-11T04:13:22Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2045-7758 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1885/14673 | |
dc.description.abstract | In social groups, individuals' dominance rank, social bonds, and kinship with other group members have been shown to influence their foraging behavior. However, there is growing evidence that the particular effects of these social traits may also depend on local environmental conditions. We investigated this by comparing the foraging behavior of wild chacma baboons, Papio ursinus, under natural conditions and in a field experiment where food was spatially clumped. Data were collected from 55 animals across two troops over a 5-month period, including over 900 agonistic foraging interactions and over 600 food patch visits in each condition. In both conditions, low-ranked individuals received more agonism, but this only translated into reduced foraging performances for low-ranked individuals in the high-competition experimental conditions. Our results suggest one possible reason for this pattern may be low-ranked individuals strategically investing social effort to negotiate foraging tolerance, but the rank-offsetting effect of this investment being overwhelmed in the higher-competition experimental environment. Our results also suggest that individuals may use imbalances in their social bonds to negotiate tolerance from others under a wider range of environmental conditions, but utilize the overall strength of their social bonds in more extreme environments where feeding competition is more intense. These findings highlight that behavioral tactics such as the strategic investment of social effort may allow foragers to mitigate the costs of low rank, but that the effectiveness of these tactics is likely to be limited in certain environments. | |
dc.description.sponsorship | H.H.M. was supported by a NERC Open CASE Studentship (NE/F013442/1) with ZSL as CASE partner. A.J.C. was supported by a Fenner School of Environment and Society Studentship and grants from the Leakey Foundation, the Animal Behavior Society (USA), the International Primatological Society, and the Explorers Club Exploration Fund. | |
dc.publisher | Wiley Open Access | |
dc.rights | © 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/2045-7758/ Author can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing), author can archive publisher's version/PDF. Creative Commons Attribution License Authors retain copyright. On open access repositories and any website. Hosting site must incorporate publisher-supplied amendments or retractions issued. Published source must be acknowledged including article DOI. Articles published prior to 14 August 2012, are published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License or another License. Publisher's version/PDF may be used. (Sherpa/Romeo as of 11/8/2015). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2045-7758 All articles accepted from 14 August 2012 are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. All articles accepted before this date, were published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. (Publisher's Journal Website as of 11/8/2015). | |
dc.source | Ecology and Evolution | |
dc.subject | dominance rank | |
dc.subject | papio ursinus | |
dc.subject | primate | |
dc.subject | field experiment | |
dc.subject | social bonds | |
dc.subject | social tactics | |
dc.title | Social effects on foraging behavior and success depend on local environmental conditions | |
dc.type | Journal article | |
local.identifier.citationvolume | 5 | |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2014-12-01 | |
dc.date.issued | 2015 | |
local.identifier.ariespublication | a383154xPUB888 | |
local.publisher.url | http://www.wileyopenaccess.com/ | |
local.type.status | Published Version | |
local.contributor.affiliation | Carter, Alecia J., CMBE, Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University | |
local.identifier.essn | 2045-7758 | |
local.bibliographicCitation.issue | 2 | |
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage | 475 | |
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage | 492 | |
local.identifier.doi | 10.1002/ece3.1377 | |
dcterms.accessRights | Open Access | |
Collections | ANU Research Publications |
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