An assessment of African lionPanthera leosociality via social network analysis: prerelease monitoring for an ex situ reintroduction program

Abstract

The wild population of the African lion Panthera leo continues to decline, requiring alternate conservation programs to be considered. One such program is ex situ reintroduction. Prior to release, long-term monitoring and assessment of behavior is required to determine whether prides and coalitions behave naturally and are sufficiently adapted to a wild environment. Social network analysis (SNA) can be used to provide insight into how the pride as a whole and individuals within it, function. Our study was conducted upon 2 captive-origin prides who are part of an ex situ reintroduction program, and 1 wild pride of African lion. Social interactions were collected at all occurrence for each pride and categorized into greet, social grooming, play, and aggression. Betweenness centrality showed that offspring in each pride were central to the play network, whereas degree indicated that adults received (indegree) the greatest number of overall social interactions, and the adult males of each pride were least likely to initiate (outdegree) any interactions. Through the assessment of individual centrality and degree values, a social keystone adult female was identified for each pride. Social network results indicated that the 2 captive-origin prides had formed cohesive social units and possessed relationships and behaviors comparable with the wild pride for the studied behaviors. This study provided the first SNA comparison between captive-bred origin and a wild pride of lions, providing valuable information on individual and pride sociality, critical for determining the success of prides within an ex situ reintroduction program.

Big Cat Coalitions: A Comparative Analysis of Regional Brain Volumes in Felidae

“…Although the lion pride is a fission–fusion society with individuals dispersing and returning to the group ( VanderWaal et al, 2009 ), it is socially cohesive. Social network analysis of both captive origin and wild prides indicate that female lions are central to the social network with adult male lions most likely to receive and least likely to initiate social interactions ( Dunston et al, 2016a , b ). Male lions are not only less social than female lions, but are also larger and more aggressive than female lions.…”

Introduction to the special column: communication, cooperation, and cognition in predators

“… Dunston et al (2016) address the crucial question of the interplay between sociality (as measured by social network analysis), and varying conditions of the physical environment. African lions are highly social and highly cooperative hunters that are subject to intense conservation challenges.…”

Behavioral correlates between daily activity and sociality in wild and captive origin African lions

“…(2013), 9 prior to use in comparing captive-origin and wild prides by Dunston et al. (2016) 10 . SNA provides us with insight into the role of sub-groups and individuals within a pride.…”

“…Social interactions were compiled into matrices for greet, groom, play, aggression and all social, and analyzed via SNA, detailed in Dunston et al. (2016) 10 . This analysis produced betweenness centrality, an indication of individual lion involvement in a social network, 6 and degree, an indication of the frequency of interactions received and initiated by each lion, 8-11 values for each lion per pride.…”