Partially shared consensus decision making and distributed leadership in vervet monkeys: older females lead the group to forage

Lee, Hillary C.; Teichroeb, Julie A.

doi:10.1002/ajpa.23058

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…3 b). Existing studies use successful initiation of group movements, as well as positioning within group to indicate leadership in collective movements 10 , 34 , 48 , 69 . Lacking information concerning initiations, we used the latter definition, assigning leadership to those at the front of single file processions.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importance of old bulls: leaders and followers in collective movements of all-male groups in African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana)

Allen

Brent

Motsentwa³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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In long-lived social species, older individuals can provide fitness benefits to their groupmates through the imparting of ecological knowledge. Research in this area has largely focused on females in matrilineal societies where, for example, older female African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) are most effective at making decisions crucial to herd survival, and old post-reproductive female resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) lead collective movements in hunting grounds. in contrast, little is known about the role of older males as leaders in long-lived social species. By analysing leadership patterns of all-male African savannah elephant traveling groups along elephant pathways in Makgadikgadi pans national park, Botswana, we found that the oldest males were more likely to lead collective movements. our results challenge the assumption that older male elephants are redundant in the population and raise concerns over the biased removal of old bulls that currently occurs in both legal trophy hunting and illegal poaching. Selective harvesting of older males could have detrimental effects on the wider elephant society through loss of leaders crucial to younger male navigation in unknown, risky environments. During coordinated group movements certain individuals can consistently arise as "leaders" with a regular influence over group decisions, with high dominance rank 1 , bold temperament 2 and greater age (often associated with enhanced knowledge or experience 3) noted as common traits characterising leaders (for review, see 4). Whilst in some cases leadership can be a passive process, a consequence of simple consensus decisions to maintain group cohesion 5 , in other cases leaders actively communicate their intent to recruit followers 6. In long-lived species, older individuals often respond more appropriately to complex, changing environments 7,8 , providing substantial fitness benefits to younger group mates. For example, older matriarchs are more effective at mobilising groups in response to predation threats and conspecifics in female African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) 8,9 , Similarly, in resident killer whale (Orcinus orca) groups there is a greater reliance on older, post-menopausal females as leaders of hunting groups in years of low salmon abundance 10. Non-human research in this area has tended to focus on females and less attention has been given to the potential for old males to act as repositories of ecological knowledge and leaders in long-lived social species. In many social mammals, males are often assumed to be replaceable because they are typically the dispersing sex 11 , and old males may be reproductively redundant, which is commonly used as an argument to support the legal trophy hunting of old males in many species 12,13. This combined with desirable features such as larger body size and ornaments, leads to selective harvesting of older males in many species, including the African savannah elephant 14. However, there is no reason to believe there would be sex-based differe...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importance of old bulls: leaders and followers in collective movements of all-male groups in African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana)

Allen

Brent

Motsentwa³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…In the consensus decision-making method, the opinions of experts are primarily provided. Subsequently, these evaluations are evaluated, and the group consensus level is calculated [42]. When this level is below the threshold value, feedback mechanism is applied.…”

Section: B Literature On the Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Consensus-Based Public Acceptance and Mapping of Nuclear Energy Investments Using Spherical and Pythagorean Fuzzy Group Decision Making Approaches

et al. 2020

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“…Typically, this method has been applied to cases where a group changes state from stationary to moving, e.g. in the cases of departures from sleeping sites [31,55] or foraging locations [56][57][58]. Initiators are typically defined by a set of behavioural characteristics, often involving moving a threshold distance away from the centre or periphery of the group, and being followed by a set number or percentage of group members within a defined time-frame.…”

Section: (A) Methods For Inferring Influence Instances From Observatimentioning

confidence: 99%

Inferring influence and leadership in moving animal groups

Strandburg‐Peshkin

Papageorgiou

Crofoot

et al. 2018

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

129

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Collective decision-making is a daily occurrence in the lives of many group-living animals, and can have critical consequences for the fitness of individuals. Understanding how decisions are reached, including who has influence and the mechanisms by which information and preferences are integrated, has posed a fundamental challenge. Here, we provide a methodological framework for studying influence and leadership in groups. We propose that individuals have if their actions result in some behavioural change among their group-mates, and are if they consistently influence others. We highlight three components of influence (influence instances, total influence and consistency of influence), which can be assessed at two levels (individual-to-individual and individual-to-group). We then review different methods, ranging from individual positioning within groups to information-theoretic approaches, by which influence has been operationally defined in empirical studies, as well as how such observations can be aggregated to give insight into the underlying decision-making process. We focus on the domain of collective movement, with a particular emphasis on methods that have recently been, or are being, developed to take advantage of simultaneous tracking data. We aim to provide a resource bringing together methodological tools currently available for studying leadership in moving animal groups, as well as to discuss the limitations of current methodologies and suggest productive avenues for future research.This article is part of the theme issue 'Collective movement ecology'.

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Partially shared consensus decision making and distributed leadership in vervet monkeys: older females lead the group to forage

Cited by 26 publications

References 80 publications

Importance of old bulls: leaders and followers in collective movements of all-male groups in African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana)

Importance of old bulls: leaders and followers in collective movements of all-male groups in African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana)

Consensus-Based Public Acceptance and Mapping of Nuclear Energy Investments Using Spherical and Pythagorean Fuzzy Group Decision Making Approaches

Inferring influence and leadership in moving animal groups

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