Mbizah Moreangels M, Valeix Marion, Macdonald David W, Loveridge Andrew J
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Department of Zoology, Recanati-Kaplan Centre University of Oxford Oxford UK.
CNRS, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, CNRS UMR 5558 Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 Villeurbanne France.
Ecol Evol. 2019 Jul 17;9(16):9111-9119. doi: 10.1002/ece3.5456. eCollection 2019 Aug.
The relationship between the spatiotemporal distribution of resources and patterns of sociality is widely discussed. While the resource dispersion hypothesis (RDH) was formulated to explain why animals sometimes live in groups from which they derive no obvious benefits, it has also been successfully applied to species that benefit from group living. Some empirical tests have supported the RDH, but others have not, so conclusions remain equivocal and further research is required to determine the extent to which RDH predictions hold in natural systems. Here, we test four predictions of the RDH in an African lion population in the context of their fission-fusion society. We analyzed data on group composition of GPS-collared lions and patterns of prey availability. Our results supported the first and second predictions of the RDH: Home range size (a) was independent of group size and (b) increased with distance between encounters with prey herds. Nonetheless, the third and fourth RDH predictions were not supported: (c) The measure of resource heterogeneity and (d) resource patch richness measured through prey herd size and body size had no significant effect on lion group size. However, regarding the fourth prediction, we added an adaptation to account for dynamics of fission-fusion society and found that the frequency of pride fission increased as group size increased. Our data set restricted us from going on to explore the effect of fission-fusion dynamics on the relationship between group size and patch richness. However, this should be investigated in future studies as including fission-fusion dynamics provides a more nuanced, realistic appreciation of lion society. Our study emphasizes the importance of understanding the complexity of a species' behavioral ecology within the framework of resource dispersion. Whatever larger theoretical framework may emerge to explain lion society, incorporating fission-fusion dynamics should allow the RDH to be refined and improved.
资源的时空分布与社会模式之间的关系已得到广泛讨论。虽然资源分散假说（RDH）旨在解释动物为何有时生活在无法从中获得明显益处的群体中，但它也已成功应用于受益于群居生活的物种。一些实证检验支持了RDH，但其他检验则不然，因此结论仍然模棱两可，需要进一步研究以确定RDH预测在自然系统中的适用程度。在此，我们在非洲狮种群的裂变 - 融合社会背景下，对RDH的四个预测进行了检验。我们分析了佩戴GPS项圈的狮子的群体组成数据以及猎物可获得性模式。我们的结果支持了RDH的第一个和第二个预测：（a）家域大小与群体大小无关，（b）随着与猎物群相遇距离的增加而增大。然而，RDH的第三个和第四个预测未得到支持：（c）通过猎物群大小和体型衡量的资源异质性指标，以及（d）资源斑块丰富度对狮群大小没有显著影响。不过，关于第四个预测，我们增加了一个考虑裂变 - 融合社会动态的因素，发现狮群裂变频率随着群体大小的增加而上升。我们的数据集限制了我们进一步探究裂变 - 融合动态对群体大小与斑块丰富度之间关系的影响。然而，这一点应在未来研究中进行调查，因为纳入裂变 - 融合动态能让我们对狮子社会有更细致、更现实的认识。我们的研究强调了在资源分散框架内理解物种行为生态学复杂性的重要性。无论未来出现何种更大的理论框架来解释狮子社会，纳入裂变 - 融合动态都应能使RDH得到完善和改进。
