Biology subjects

Boogert, N. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Boogert, N. J..

7 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Breeding alters females' social positions by changing dominance dynamics

Agonistic and affiliative interactions with group members dictate individuals access to resources, and investment in competing for resources is often traded off with other needs. For example, reproductive investment can reduce body condition and, thereby, an individuals ability to win future agonistic interactions. However, group members may also alter their behaviour towards reproductive individuals, such as becoming more or less aggressive. Here, we investigated the social consequences of reproduction in female vulturine guineafowl Acryllium vulturinum, a plural breeder in which females disperse and are subordinate to males. We found opposing patterns for breeders within- and between-sex dominance interactions from before to after breeding. Specifically, while breeding females became far less likely to win dominance interactions with non-breeding females after breeding than before breeding, they received considerably fewer male aggressions than non-breeding females after breeding. Using agent-based models, we then show that hierarchies inferred using the Percolation and Conductance method are robust to such variation in interaction rates, while other common methods may be prone to systematically overestimating or underestimating particular individuals hierarchy positions. Our study highlights reproduction as a driver of dominance dynamics, and illustrates how the study of dominance may benefit from considering variation in interaction rates.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

Costs dictate strategic investment in dominance interactions

Dominance is important for access to resources. As dominance interactions are costly, individuals should be strategic in who they interact with. One hypothesis is that individuals should direct costly interactions towards those closest in rank, as they have most to gain--in terms of attaining or maintaining dominance--from winning such interactions. Here, we show that male vulturine guineafowl (Acryllium vulturinum), a gregarious species with steep dominance hierarchies, strategically express higher-cost aggressive interactions towards males occupying ranks immediately below themselves in their groups hierarchy. In contrast, lower-cost aggressive interactions are expressed towards group members further down the hierarchy. By directly evaluating differences in the strategic use of higher- and lower-cost aggressive interactions towards competitors, we show that individuals disproportionately use highest-cost interactions--such as chases--towards males found one to three ranks below themselves. Our results support the hypothesis that the costs associated with different interaction types can determine their expression in social groups with steep dominance hierarchies.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

Group size and modularity interact to shape the spread of infection and information through animal societies

Social interactions between animals can provide many benefits, including the ability to gain useful environmental information through social learning. However, these social contacts can also facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases through a population. Animals engaging in social interactions must therefore face a trade-off between the potential informational benefits and the risk of acquiring disease. In order to understand how this trade-off can influence animal sociality, it is necessary to quantify the effects of different social structures on individuals likelihood of acquiring information versus infection Theoretical models have suggested that modular social networks, associated with the formation of groups or sub-groups, can slow spread of infection by trapping it within particular groups. However these social structures will not necessarily impact the spread of information in the same way if its transmission is considered as a "complex contagion", e.g. through individuals copying the majority (conformist learning). Here we use simulation models to demonstrate that modular networks can promote the spread of information relative to the spread of infection, but only when the network is fragmented and group sizes are small. We show that the difference in transmission between information and disease is maximised for more well-connected social networks when the likelihood of transmission is intermediate. Our results have important implications for understanding the selective pressures operating on the social structure of animal societies, revealing that highly fragmented networks such as those formed in fission-fusion social groups and multilevel societies can be effective in modulating the infection-information trade-off for individuals within them. Significance statementRisk of infection is commonly regarded as one of the costs of animal social behaviours, while the potential for acquiring useful information is seen as a benefit. Balancing this risk of infection with the potential to gain useful information is one of the key trade-offs facing animals that engage in social interactions. In order to better understand this trade-off, it is necessary to quantify how different social structures can promote access to useful information while minimising risk of infection. We used simulations of disease and information spread to examine how group sizes and social network fragmentation influences both these transmission processes. Our models find that more subdivided networks slow the spread of disease far more than infection, but only group sizes are small. Our results demonstrate that showing that fragmented social structures can be more effective in balancing the infection-information trade-off for individuals within them.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2018

The development of social interactions in Corydoras aeneus larvae

Very young animals develop life skills as they mature, and for social animals this includes the acquisition of social abilities such as communication. Many animals exhibit changeable patterns of social behavior based on development, and social experience during the juvenile period can be vital for the development of necessary social behaviors in adulthood. We investigated the development of a distinctive tactile interaction behavior in Corydoras aeneus, the Bronze Cory catfish. Adults use this behavior to coordinate group activities during foraging and flight responses from predators, and the development of this behavior in larvae is of interest in investigating how communication and social behaviors develop as an individual matures, and which factors affect their development. We found that larvae respond to applied tactile stimulation with a flight response far less often as larvae matured, implying that larvae become less sensitive to tactile stimulation with age. Given that adults frequently interact with one another tactilely, this development is consistent with developing appropriate social behavior in adulthood. We also found that social exposure affects the development of the larval response to tactile interactions with conspecifics, and that isolation in the earliest larval stage leads to a greater likelihood of responding to a tactile interaction with a conspecific with a flight response. This suggests that social exposure is important for developing an appropriate response to tactile stimulation in social settings and underscores the particular importance of early life experiences in the development of sociality.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2018

The role of tactile interactions in flight responses in the Bronze Cory catfish (Corydoras aeneus)

One of the primary functions of animal aggregations is defense against predators. Many social animals enjoy reduced predation risk as a result of grouping, and individuals within groups can benefit from information transferred by their group-mates about a potential predator. We present evidence that a tactile interaction behavior we term nudging substantially modified group responses to a potential threat in a highly social catfish species, Corydoras aeneus. These catfish deployed nudges during flight responses, and these nudges were associated with a greater likelihood of group cohesion following a threat event. Increased nudging behavior resulted in longer flight responses. In addition, individuals that perceived the threat first were more likely to initiate nudges, implying that nudges could be used to alert group-mates to the presence of a threat. Taken together, our results suggest that tactile communication plays an important role in gaining anti-predator benefits from sociality in these fish.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2018

Coping with strangers: how familiarity and active interactions shape group coordination in Corydoras aeneus

Social groups whose members have had sustained prior experience with each other frequently exhibit improved coordination and outperform groups whose members are unfamiliar with one another. The mechanisms by which familiarity assists coordination are not well known. Prior social experience may simply allow individuals to learn the behavioral tendencies of familiar group-mates and coordinate accordingly. In the absence of prior social experience, it would be adaptive for individuals to develop strategies for coping with unfamiliar others to minimize the disadvantage of unfamiliarity. To explore the dynamics of familiarity in shaping group behaviors, we used a highly social catfish, Corydoras aeneus, that utilizes a distinctive, observable tactile interactions. Here we describe this tactile interaction behavior, physical \"nudges\" that are deployed to initiate group movements and maintain contact with group-mates during group movements. We then report the results of two experiments exploring the relationship between nudges and coordination. First, within triplets of two familiar and one unfamiliar individual, we found no individual differences in nudging rate based on familiarity. Despite all individuals interacting at similar rates, however, unfamiliar individuals failed to coordinate as well as their familiar group-mates, and were more frequently absent from group movements. Second, comparing pairs of familiar with pairs of unfamiliar fish, there was no difference in the level of coordination between pairs. Instead, we found that unfamiliar pairs exhibited significantly higher nudging rates, suggesting that unfamiliar pairs could compensate for their unfamiliarity by nudging more frequently. In contrast, familiar individuals coordinated with comparatively little nudging, presumably because they were experienced with each other. Overall, these results suggest that nudges can be used to improve coordination of group activities, but that their usage is reduced in the case of familiar individuals, implying that these potential signals may be costly.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2017

Consistent Individual Differences Drive Collective Behaviour And Group Functioning Of Schooling Fish

The ubiquity of consistent inter-individual differences in behaviour ( animal personalities) 1,2, suggests they may constitute a fundamental component of animal groups that may drive their functioning 3,4. Despite increasing evidence that highlights their importance 5-16, we still lack a unified mechanistic frame-work to explain and predict how inter-individual differences may affect collective behaviour. Here we investigate how differences in individual behavioural tendencies affect the group structure, movement dynamics, and foraging behaviour of animal groups using free-swimming stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Analysis of high-resolution tracking data of known individuals demonstrates that, across a range of contexts, consistent inter-individual differences in social proximity were strongly linked to speed and, together with boldness predicted spatial positioning and leadership within groups, differences in structure and movement dynamics between groups, as well as individual and group foraging performance. These effects of inter-individual behavioural variation on group-level states emerged naturally from a generic model of heterogeneous, self-organising groups. Our study combines experimental and theoretical evidence for a simple mechanism to explain variation in the emergence of structure, dynamics, and functional capabilities of groups across social and ecological scales. In addition, we show that individual performance was conditional to the group composition, providing a potential basis for social selection driving behavioural differentiation between individuals.

animal behavior and cognition↗