dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaEvidence for social role in a dolphin social network
| Authors | David Lusseau |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0607048 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0607048 |
| Journal | published in 2007, Evolutionary Ecology 21(3): 357-366 |
Abstract
Social animals have to take into consideration the behaviour of conspecifics when making decisions to go by their daily lives. These decisions affect their fitness and there is therefore an evolutionary pressure to try making the right choices. In many instances individuals will make their own choices and the behaviour of the group will be a democratic integration of all decisions. However, in some instances it can be advantageous to follow the choice of a few individuals in the group if they have more information regarding the situation that has arisen. Here I provide early evidence that decisions about shifts in activity states in a population of bottlenose dolphin follow such a decision making process. This unshared consensus is mediated by a non-vocal signal which can be communicated globally within the dolphin school. These signals are emitted by individuals that tend to have more information about the behaviour of potential competitors because of their position in the social network. I hypothesise that this decision making process emerged from the social structure of the population and the need to maintain mixed-sex schools.
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"abstract": "Social animals have to take into consideration the behaviour of conspecifics\nwhen making decisions to go by their daily lives. These decisions affect their\nfitness and there is therefore an evolutionary pressure to try making the right\nchoices. In many instances individuals will make their own choices and the\nbehaviour of the group will be a democratic integration of all decisions.\nHowever, in some instances it can be advantageous to follow the choice of a few\nindividuals in the group if they have more information regarding the situation\nthat has arisen. Here I provide early evidence that decisions about shifts in\nactivity states in a population of bottlenose dolphin follow such a decision\nmaking process. This unshared consensus is mediated by a non-vocal signal which\ncan be communicated globally within the dolphin school. These signals are\nemitted by individuals that tend to have more information about the behaviour\nof potential competitors because of their position in the social network. I\nhypothesise that this decision making process emerged from the social structure\nof the population and the need to maintain mixed-sex schools.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0607048",
"authors": [
"David Lusseau"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.PE"
],
"journal_ref": "published in 2007, Evolutionary Ecology 21(3): 357-366",
"title": "Evidence for social role in a dolphin social network",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0607048"
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