Fratellone Gregory P, Li Jin-Hua, Sheeran Lori K, Wagner R S, Wang Xi, Sun Lixing
Department of Anthropology, Primate Behavior and Ecology Program, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA, USA.
School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui, China.
Primates. 2019 May;60(3):183-189. doi: 10.1007/s10329-018-0691-6. Epub 2018 Oct 6.
Social network analysis provides insights into patterns of group movements in primates, but fewer studies to date have focused on the dynamics of how such movements occur. In this study, we proposed and tested two hypotheses about the influence of sex on social connectivity and group movement in Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana): (1) adult females are socially more connected than are adult males and (2) social connectivity facilitates the speed of collective decision-making. We collected data from 128 successful collective movements (≥ 2 individuals followed an initiator within 5 min) over a 2-month period in a group of adult Tibetan macaques at Mt. Huangshan, China. Although high-ranking individuals of both sexes in our dataset were more central in their social network than were low-ranking individuals, our results show that affiliations between females were stronger, with more preferred associations than those between males. Groups with more females reached collective decisions faster than groups with fewer females. We conclude that female Tibetan macaques use their social networks to enhance the speed of collective decision-making, which may have associated fitness benefits.
社会网络分析有助于深入了解灵长类动物群体运动的模式，但迄今为止，关注此类运动发生动态的研究较少。在本研究中，我们提出并检验了两个关于性别对藏猕猴（Macaca thibetana）社会连通性和群体运动影响的假设：（1）成年雌性在社会关系上比成年雄性更紧密；（2）社会连通性有助于提高集体决策的速度。我们在中国黄山的一群成年藏猕猴中，在两个月的时间里收集了128次成功集体运动（≥2只个体在5分钟内跟随发起者）的数据。虽然我们数据集中的两性高等级个体在其社会网络中比低等级个体更处于中心位置，但我们的结果表明，雌性之间的联系更强，比雄性之间有更多偏好的关联。雌性较多的群体比雌性较少的群体更快地达成集体决策。我们得出结论，雌性藏猕猴利用其社会网络提高集体决策的速度，这可能带来相关的适应性益处。
