Proximity patterns in water buffaloes' activities on pasture

Abstract

Abstract. Water buffaloes are considered social animals and perform several activities on pasture, such as grazing, moving, standing, ruminating, wallowing, lying, and drinking. However, the way these animals form their social structure in the herd during each one of these activities is still unknown. Literature for water buffaloes has focused mainly on their productive characteristics, impact of grazing on wetlands and behavior during grazing but failed to address the way these animals form their social organization during their activities on pasture. In this study, the tools of social network analysis are used to analyze, detect, and depict the proximity patterns in water buffaloes' activities on pasture and the effect of their age and gender on them. We describe and interpret a series of global and local network indices, and show that the water buffaloes differentiate their social structure in their activities on pasture and that the animals' age and gender affect their interacting patterns, and provide a framework for the application of social network analysis on grazing animals' social behavioral studies. We expect that this framework could be used in future research to provide information regarding the social structure of other kinds of animals that graze in different forage and climatic environments and help animal breeders to improve their management practices.

Personality homophily drives female friendships in a feral ungulate

“…Ungulates represent a wide range of species with varying social organisations 33 , providing a suitable system to expand the investigation of the emergence of friendships. Several ungulate species exhibit complex sociality patterns, including marked preferences for specific group members over others (e.g., cattle 34 , goat 35 , Przewalski’s horse 36 , bison 37 , water buffalo 38 ). However, existing research has predominantly used demographic characteristics, e.g., age and sex, often coupled with kinship and dominance rank relationships, to explain sociality patterns in ‘non-random’ or heterogeneous networks.…”