Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK
Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Espoo FI-00076, Finland.
Biol Lett. 2018 Mar;14(3). doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0700.
Group-living offers both benefits (protection against predators, access to resources) and costs (increased ecological competition, the impact of group size on fertility). Here, we use cluster analysis to detect natural patternings in a comprehensive sample of baboon groups, and identify a geometric sequence with peaks at approximately 20, 40, 80 and 160. We suggest (i) that these form a set of demographic oscillators that set habitat-specific limits to group size and (ii) that the oscillator arises from a trade-off between female fertility and predation risk.
群居生活既有好处（如免受捕食者的侵害、获得资源），也有代价（如增加生态竞争、群体规模对生育率的影响）。在这里，我们使用聚类分析来检测狒狒群体的综合样本中的自然模式，并发现一个大约 20、40、80 和 160 的峰值的几何序列。我们认为：(i) 这些形成了一组人口振荡器，为群体规模设定了特定栖息地的限制；(ii) 振荡器源自于雌性生育率和捕食风险之间的权衡。
