november, 2018
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Event Details
Abstract
Group-living animals face a wide array of coordination challenges, from coming to consensus with group mates about when and where to move, to avoiding competition when searching for food, to collectively defending shared resources from external threats. For animals that live in stable social groups, social relationships are often multi-faceted and can persist over an individual’s lifetime. These complexities may introduce heterogeneity into the rules individuals employ when making decisions, with potential consequences for group-level outcomes. Furthermore, many species have evolved sophisticated communication systems that can play a key role in shaping the processes of group coordination. Employing technologies such as lightweight GPS tags, accelerometers, and audio recorders enables us to monitor of the movements, behaviors, and vocalizations of multiple individuals simultaneously within wild animal groups, offering a new window into the mechanisms underpinning collective behaviors in natural contexts. In this talk, I will present recent and emerging collaborative work exploring the mechanisms by which animals living in stable social groups coordinate collective behaviors, focusing on three systems of social mammals: olive baboons, meerkats, and spotted hyenas.
Dr Ariana Strandburg-Peshkin’s website
If you would like to speak to Ariana please contact Frants Jensen.