Skewed performance distributions as evidence of motor constraint in sports and animal displays

Animal displays (i.e. movement-based signals) often involve extreme behaviours that seem to push signallers to the limits of their abilities. If motor constraints limit display performance, signal evolution will be constrained, and displays can function as honest signals of quality. Existing approaches for measuring constraint, however, require multiple kinds of behavioural data. A method that requires only one kind could open up new research directions. We propose a conceptual model of performance under constraint, which predicts that the distribution of constrained performance will skew away from the constraint. We tested this prediction with sports data, because we know a priori that athletic performance is constrained and that athletes attempt to maximize performance. Performance consistently skewed in the predicted direction in a variety of sports. We then used statistical models based on the skew normal distribution to estimate the constraints on athletes and displaying animals while controlling for potential confounds and clustered data. We concluded that motor constraints tend to generate skewed behaviour and that skew normal models are useful tools to estimate constraints from a single axis of behavioural data. This study expands the toolkit for identifying, characterizing, and comparing performance constraints for applications in animal behaviour, physiology and sports.

Estimates of life history parameters in a high latitude, arid-country vervet monkey population

We present data on life history parameters from a long-term study of vervet monkeys in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Estimates are presented of age at first conception for females and age at natal dispersal for males, along with the probability of survival to adulthood for infants born during the study, female reproductive life-span, reproductive output (including lifetime reproductive success for a subset of females), and inter-birth interval (IBI) duration. We also assess the effect of maternal age and infant survival on length of IBI. We then go on to compare life history parameters for our population with those from two East African populations in Kenya (Amboseli and Laikipia). We find there is broad consensus across the three populations, although mean infant survival was considerably lower for the two East African sites. Such comparisons must be made cautiously, however, as local ecology across the duration of the studies obviously has an impact on the estimates obtained. With this caveat in place, we consider that the concordance between values is sufficient to enable the values reported here to be used in comparative studies of primate life history, although data from habitats with higher rainfall and lower levels of seasonality are needed, and the results presented here should not be seen as canonical.

Using network synchrony to identify drivers of social dynamics

Social animals frequently show dynamic social network patterns, the consequences of which are felt at the individual and group level. It is often difficult, however, to identify what drivers are responsible for changes in these networks. We suggest that patterns of network synchronization across multiple social groups can be used to better understand the relative contributions of extrinsic and intrinsic drivers. When groups are socially separated, but share similar physical environments, the extent to which network measures across multiple groups covary (i.e. network synchrony) can provide an estimate of the relative roles of extrinsic and intrinsic drivers. As a case example, we use allogrooming data from three adjacent vervet monkey groups to generate dynamic social networks. We found that network strength was strongly synchronized across the three groups, pointing to shared extrinsic environmental conditions as the driver. We also found low to moderate levels of synchrony in network modularity, suggesting that intrinsic social processes may be more important in driving changes in subgroup formation in this population. We conclude that patterns of network synchronization can help guide future research in identifying the proximate mechanisms behind observed social dynamics in animal groups.

Extracting spatial networks from capture–recapture data reveals individual site fidelity patterns within a marine mammal’s spatial range

Estimating the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances requires an understanding of the habitat‐use patterns of individuals within a population. This is especially the case when disturbances are localized within a population's spatial range, as variation in habitat use within a population can drastically alter the distribution of impacts.

Here, we illustrate the potential for multilevel binomial models to generate spatial networks from capture–recapture data, a common data source used in wildlife studies to monitor population dynamics and habitat use. These spatial networks capture which regions of a population's spatial distribution share similar/dissimilar individual usage patterns, and can be especially useful for detecting structured habitat use within the population's spatial range.

Using simulations and 18 years of capture–recapture data from St. Lawrence Estuary (SLE) beluga, we show that this approach can successfully estimate the magnitude of similarities/dissimilarities in individual usage patterns across sectors, and identify sectors that share similar individual usage patterns that differ from other sectors, that is, structured habitat use. In the case of SLE beluga, this method identified multiple clusters of individuals, each preferentially using restricted areas within their summer range of the SLE.

Multilevel binomial models can be effective at estimating spatial structure in habitat use within wildlife populations sampled by capture–recapture of individuals, and can be especially useful when sampling effort is not evenly distributed. Our finding of a structured habitat use within the SLE beluga summer range has direct implications for estimating individual exposures to localized stressors, such as underwater noise from shipping or other activities.

Agent-based modelling reveals a disproportionate exposure of females and calves to a local increase in shipping and associated noise in an endangered beluga population

Vessel underwater noise (VUN) is one of the main threats to the recovery of the endangered St. Lawrence Estuary Beluga population (SLEB). The 1% yearly population decline indicates that the cumulative threats are already beyond sustainable limits for the SLEB. However, a potential threefold increase in shipping traffic is expected within its critical habitat in the coming years resulting from proposed port-industrial projects in the Saguenay River. Current data indicate that SLEB typically use multiple sectors within their summer range, likely leading to differential VUN exposure among individuals. The degree of displacement and spatial mixing among habitats are not yet well understood but can be simulated under different assumptions about movement patterns at the individual and population levels. Here, we propose using an agent-based model (ABM) to explore the biases introduced when estimating exposure to stressors such as VUN, where individual-centric movement patterns and habitat use are derived from different spatial behaviour assumptions. Simulations of the ABM revealed that alternative behavioural assumptions for individual belugas can significantly alter the estimation of instantaneous and cumulative exposure of SLEB to VUN. Our simulations also predicted that with the projected traffic increase in the Saguenay River, the characteristics making it a quiet zone for SLEB within its critical habitat would be nullified. Whereas spending more time in the Saguenay than in the Estuary allows belugas to be exposed to less noise under the current traffic regime, this relationship is reversed under the increased traffic scenario. Considering the importance of the Saguenay for SLEB females and calves, our results support the need to understand its role as a possible acoustic refuge for this endangered population. This underlines the need to understand and describe individual and collective beluga behaviours using the best available data to conduct a thorough acoustic impact assessment concerning future increased traffic.

Temporal patterns in the social network of core units in Rwenzori Angolan colobus monkeys: Effects of food availability and interunit dispersal

Multi-level societies are complex, nested social systems where basic social groups (i.e., core units) associate in a hierarchical manner, allowing animals to adjust their group sizes in response to variables such as food availability, predation, or conspecific threat. These pressures fluctuate over time and examining the extent to which this variation affects the clustering of core units into different tiers may be instrumental in understanding the evolution of multi-level societies.The goal of our study was to determine the degree of temporal variability in interunit associations in a multi-level society of Rwenzori Angolan colobus monkey (Colobus angolensis ruwenzorii), and to determine the social and ecological factors that underlie association patterns. The C. a. ruwenzorii multi-level society consists of at least three tiers, with core units clustering into clans that share a home range in a band tier.We performed social network analyses on 21 months of association data from 13 core units (totaling 139 identifiable individuals) at Lake Nabugabo, Uganda. We described the patterns of variation in core-unit associations over time and investigated how changes in rainfall, food availability, and interunit dispersals were correlated with these associations over the short-term (month to month) and long-term (year to year).Although clans were relatively stable, larger-scale changes in association patterns included the formation of an all-male unit and the transfer of one core unit between clans (within the band tier). Seasonally, core units associated significantly more when fruit, their preferred food source, was abundant (i.e., social networks were denser and more clustered) and there was no direct effect of rainfall seasonality or young leaf availability. Male dispersals also occurred more during periods of high fruit availability, suggesting that greater band cohesion allowed males to prospect and transfer between core units. Once males transferred, their previous and new units associated significantly more with one another than with other core units for 1-2 months postdispersal. The dispersal of five males from one core unit to another in a different clan co-occurred with this core unit switching its clan affiliation.By examining temporal shifts in social network structure among core units, this study shows the interconnected roles that food availability and dispersal have in shaping the C. a. ruwenzorii multi-level social system. Our findings highlight how ecological conditions can drive association patterns, impact interunit relationships, and influence social organization.

Tolerance of muzzle contact underpins the acquisition of foraging information in vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus)

Muzzle contact, where one animal brings its muzzle into close proximity to that of another, has often been hypothesized as a straightforward means of socially mediated food investigation. Using 2,707 observations of muzzle contact occurring across 3 troops of wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), we tested this social learning hypothesis. We first explored the social structuring of muzzle contact by analyzing the characteristics of initiators and receivers. Similar to previous research, juveniles initiated contact at higher rates than adults, particularly toward adult females and animals with lower dominance rankings. The highest number of contacts occurred between kin compared to contacts between nonkin. However, on the whole, contacts occurred at low rates, even among kin dyads. We next determined whether muzzle contact was used as a means to learn socially, specifically by animals seeking foraging information. We found that initiators did not overwhelmingly target foragers, meaning animals do not appear to directly seek information about food during muzzle contact. However, animals that contacted foragers were more likely forage themselves in comparison to those that contacted nonforagers, suggesting that foragers do provide food information. These findings indicate that both kin and low-ranking animals serve as discriminative stimuli for social tolerance and that foraging animals serve as discriminative stimuli for food availability. We conclude that broad social tolerance, rather than the recipient's knowledge, is the most likely antecedent to muzzle contact and that animals engage in this behavior as a low-cost means of maintaining a baseline level of information about their environment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Formidable females redux: male social integration into female networks and the value of dynamic multilayer networks

The development of multilayer network techniques is a boon for researchers who wish to understand how different interaction layers might influence each other, and how these in turn might influence group dynamics. Here, we investigate how integration between male and female grooming and aggression interaction networks influences male power trajectories in vervet monkeys Chlorocebus pygerythrus. Our previous analyses of this phenomenon used a monolayer approach, and our aim here is to extend these analyses using a dynamic multilayer approach. To do so, we constructed a temporal series of male and female interaction layers. We then used a multivariate multilevel autoregression model to compare cross-lagged associations between a male’s centrality in the female grooming layer and changes in male Elo ratings. Our results confirmed our original findings: changes in male centrality within the female grooming network were weakly but positively tied to changes in their Elo ratings. However, the multilayer network approach offered additional insights into this social process, identifying how changes in a male’s centrality cascade through the other network layers. This dynamic view indicates that the changes in Elo ratings are likely to be short-lived, but that male centrality within the female network had a much stronger impact throughout the multilayer network as a whole, especially on reducing intermale aggression (i.e., aggression directed by males toward other males). We suggest that multilayer social network approaches can take advantage of increased amounts of social data that are more commonly collected these days, using a variety of methods. Such data are inherently multilevel and multilayered, and thus offer the ability to quantify more precisely the dynamics of animal social behaviors.

Climate induced stress and mortality in vervet monkeys

As the effects of global climate change become more apparent, animal species will become increasingly affected by extreme climate and its effect on the environment. There is a pressing need to understand animal physiological and behavioural responses to climatic stressors. We used the reactive scope model as a framework to investigate the influence of drought conditions on vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) behaviour, physiological stress and survival across 2.5 years in South Africa. Data were collected on climatic, environmental and behavioural variables and physiological stress via faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCMs). There was a meaningful interaction between water availability and resource abundance: when food availability was high but standing water was unavailable, fGCM concentrations were higher compared to when food was abundant and water was available. Vervet monkeys adapted their behaviour during a drought period by spending a greater proportion of time resting at the expense of feeding, moving and social behaviour. As food availability decreased, vervet mortality increased. Peak mortality occurred when food availability was at its lowest and there was no standing water. A survival analysis revealed that higher fGCM concentrations were associated with an increased probability of mortality. Our results suggest that with continued climate change, the increasing prevalence of drought will negatively affect vervet abundance and distribution in our population. Our study contributes to knowledge of the limits and scope of behavioural and physiological plasticity among vervet monkeys in the face of rapid environmental change.

Network integration and limits to social inheritance in vervet monkeys

Social networks can be adaptive for members and a recent model (Ilany and Akçay 2016 Nat. Comm.7, 12084 (doi:10.1038/ncomms12084)) has demonstrated that network structure can be maintained by a simple process of social inheritance. Here, we ask how juvenile vervet monkeys integrate into their adult grooming networks, using the model to test whether observed grooming patterns replicate network structure. Female juveniles, who are philopatric, increased their grooming effort towards adults more than males, although this was not reciprocated by the adults themselves. While more consistent maternal grooming networks, together with maternal network strength, predicted increasing similarity in the patterning of mother-daughter grooming allocations, daughters' grooming networks generally did not match closely those of their mothers. However, maternal networks themselves were not very consistent across time, thus presenting youngsters with a moving target that may be difficult to match. Observed patterns of juvenile female grooming did not replicate the adult network, for which increased association with adults not groomed by their mothers would be necessary. These results suggest that network flexibility, not stability, characterizes our groups and that juveniles are exposed to, and must learn to cope with, temporal shifts in network structure. We hypothesize that this may lead to individual variation in behavioural flexibility, which in turn may help explain why and how variation in sociability influences fitness.

Individual-level movement bias leads to the formation of higher-order social structure in a mobile group of baboons

In mobile social groups, influence patterns driving group movement can vary between democratic and despotic. The arrival at any single pattern of influence is thought to be underpinned by both environmental factors and group composition. To identify the specific patterns of influence driving travel decision-making in a chacma baboon troop, we used spatially explicit data to extract patterns of individual movement bias. We scaled these estimates of individual-level bias to the level of the group by constructing an influence network and assessing its emergent structural properties. Our results indicate that there is heterogeneity in movement bias: individual animals respond consistently to particular group members, and higher-ranking animals are more likely to influence the movement of others. This heterogeneity resulted in a group-level network structure that consisted of a single core and two outer shells. Here, the presence of a core suggests that a set of highly interdependent animals drove routine group movements. These results suggest that heterogeneity at the individual level can lead to group-level influence structures, and that movement patterns in mobile social groups can add to the exploration of both how these structures develop (i.e. mechanistic aspects) and what consequences they have for individual- and group-level outcomes (i.e. functional aspects).

Selection to outsmart the germs: The evolution of disease recognition and social cognition

The emergence of providing care to diseased conspecifics must have been a turning point during the evolution of hominin sociality. On a population level, care may have minimized the costs of socially transmitted diseases at a time of increasing social complexity, although individual care-givers probably incurred increased transmission risks. We propose that care-giving likely originated within kin networks, where the costs may have been balanced by fitness increases obtained through caring for ill kin. We test a novel hypothesis of hominin cognitive evolution in which disease may have selected for the cognitive ability to recognize when a conspecific is infected. Because diseases may produce symptoms that are likely detectable via the perceptual-cognitive pathways integral to social cognition, we suggest that disease recognition and social cognition may have evolved together. Using agent-based modeling, we test 1) under what conditions disease can select for increasing disease recognition and care-giving among kin, 2) whether providing care produces greater selection for cognition than an avoidance strategy, and 3) whether care-giving alters the progression of the disease through the population. The greatest selection was produced by diseases with lower risks to the care-giver and prevalences low enough not to disrupt the kin networks. When care-giving and avoidance strategies were compared, only care-giving reduced the severity of the disease outbreaks and subsequent population crashes. The greatest selection for increased cognitive abilities occurred early in the model runs when the outbreaks and population crashes were most severe. Therefore, over the course of human evolution, repeated introductions of novel diseases into naïve populations could have produced sustained selection for increased disease recognition and care-giving behavior, leading to the evolution of increased cognition, social complexity, and, eventually, medical care in humans. Finally, we lay out predictions derived from our disease recognition hypothesis that we encourage paleoanthropologists, bioarchaeologists, primatologists, and paleogeneticists to test.

Competing pressures on populations: long-term dynamics of food availability, food quality, disease, stress and animal abundance

Despite strong links between sociality and fitness that ultimately affect the size of animal populations, the particular social and ecological factors that lead to endangerment are not well understood. Here, we synthesize approximately 25 years of data and present new analyses that highlight dynamics in forest composition, food availability, the nutritional quality of food, disease, physiological stress and population size of endangered folivorous red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus). There is a decline in the quality of leaves 15 and 30 years following two previous studies in an undisturbed area of forest. The consumption of a low-quality diet in one month was associated with higher glucocorticoid levels in the subsequent month and stress levels in groups living in degraded forest fragments where diet was poor was more than twice those in forest groups. In contrast, forest composition has changed and when red colobus food availability was weighted by the protein-to-fibre ratio, which we have shown positively predicts folivore biomass, there was an increase in the availability of high-quality trees. Despite these changing social and ecological factors, the abundance of red colobus has remained stable, possibly through a combination of increasing group size and behavioural flexibility.

Male endocrine response to seasonally varying environmental and social factors in a neotropical primate, Cebus capucinus

OBJECTIVE

Circannual variation in reproduction is pervasive in birds and mammals. In primates, breeding seasonality is variable, with seasonal birth peaks occurring even in year-round breeders. Environmental seasonality is reportedly an important contributor to the observed variation in reproductive seasonality. Given that food availability is the primary factor constraining female reproduction, predictions concerning responsiveness to environmental seasonality focus on females, with studies of males focusing primarily on social factors. We examined the influence of both environmental and social factors on male fecal testosterone (fT) and glucocorticoids (fGC) in moderately seasonally breeding white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus) in Costa Rica.

METHODS

Over 17 months, we collected 993 fecal samples from 14 males in three groups. We used LMM to simultaneously examine the relative effects of photoperiod, fruit biomass, rainfall, temperature, female reproductive status (i.e., number of periovulatory periods, POPs), and male age and dominance rank on monthly fT and fGC levels.

RESULTS

Male age and rank had large effects on fT and fGC. Additionally, some hormone variation was explained by environmental factors: photoperiod in the previous month (i.e., lagged photoperiod) was the best environmental predictor of monthly fT levels, whereas fGC levels were best explained by lagged photoperiod, fruit biomass, and rainfall. POPs predicted monthly fT and fGC, but this effect was reduced when all variables were considered simultaneously, possibly because lagged photoperiod and POP were highly correlated.

CONCLUSIONS

Males may use photoperiod as a cue predicting circannual trends in the temporal distribution of fertile females, while also fine-tuning short-term hormone increases to the actual presence of ovulatory females, which may occur at any time during the year.

Is Markhamia lutea's abundance determined by animal foraging?

Understanding the determinants of tropical forest tree richness and spatial distribution is a central goal of forest ecology; however, the role of herbivorous mammals has received little attention. Here we explore the potential for red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus) to influence the abundance of Markhamia lutea trees in a tropical forest by feeding extensively on the tree's flowers, such that this tree population is not able to regularly set fruit. Using 14 years of data from Kibale National Park, Uganda, we quantify M. lutea flower and fruit production. Similarly, using 21 years of data, we quantify temporal changes in the abundance of stems in size classes from 1 m tall and above. Our analyses demonstrate that M. lutea is rarely able to produce fruit and that this corresponds to a general decline in its abundance across all size classes. Moreover, using 7 years of feeding records, we demonstrate that red colobus feed on M. lutea, consuming large amounts of leaf and flower buds whenever they were available, suggesting that this behavior limits fruit production. Therefore, we suggest that red colobus are presently important for structuring the distribution and abundance of M. lutea in Kibale. This dynamic raises the intriguing question of how a large M. lutea population was able to originally establish. There is no evidence of a change in red colobus population size; however, if this old-growth forest is in a non-equilibrium state, M. lutea may have become established when red colobus ate a different diet.

Emergent group level navigation: an agent-based evaluation of movement patterns in a folivorous primate

The foraging activity of many organisms reveal strategic movement patterns, showing efficient use of spatially distributed resources. The underlying mechanisms behind these movement patterns, such as the use of spatial memory, are topics of considerable debate. To augment existing evidence of spatial memory use in primates, we generated movement patterns from simulated primate agents with simple sensory and behavioral capabilities. We developed agents representing various hypotheses of memory use, and compared the movement patterns of simulated groups to those of an observed group of red colobus monkeys (Procolobus rufomitratus), testing for: the effects of memory type (Euclidian or landmark based), amount of memory retention, and the effects of social rules in making foraging choices at the scale of the group (independent or leader led). Our results indicate that red colobus movement patterns fit best with simulated groups that have landmark based memory and a follow the leader foraging strategy. Comparisons between simulated agents revealed that social rules had the greatest impact on a group's step length, whereas the type of memory had the highest impact on a group's path tortuosity and cohesion. Using simulation studies as experimental trials to test theories of spatial memory use allows the development of insight into the behavioral mechanisms behind animal movement, developing case-specific results, as well as general results informing how changes to perception and behavior influence movement patterns.