Papageorgiou Danai, Farine Damien R
Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Collective Behavior, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
University of Konstanz, Department of Biology, Universitätsstraße 10, Konstanz 78457, Germany.
Sci Adv. 2020 Nov 25;6(48). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aba5881. Print 2020 Nov.
The concepts of leadership and dominance are often conflated, with individuals high in the social hierarchy assumed to be decision-makers. Dominants can exclusively benefit from monopolizing food resources and, therefore, induce an intragroup conflict when leading their group to these resources. We demonstrate that shared decision-making reduces such conflicts by studying movement initiations of wild vulturine guineafowl, a species that forms large, stable social groups with a steep dominance hierarchy. When dominant individuals displace subordinates from monopolizable food patches, the excluded subordinates subsequently initiate collective movement. The dominants then abandon the patch to follow the direction of subordinates, contrasting with nonmonopolizable resources where no individuals are excluded, and dominant individuals contribute extensively to group decisions. Our results demonstrate the role of shared decision-making in maintaining the balance of influence within animal societies.
领导和支配的概念常常被混淆，社会等级高的个体被认为是决策者。占主导地位者可以通过独占食物资源而独享好处，因此，当带领群体获取这些资源时会引发群体内部冲突。我们通过研究野生肉垂麦鸡的行动发起过程来证明共同决策能减少此类冲突，肉垂麦鸡这种物种会形成大型、稳定的社会群体，且有着森严的等级制度。当占主导地位的个体将下属从可独占的食物斑块中赶走时，被排斥的下属随后会发起集体行动。然后，占主导地位者会离开该斑块去跟随下属的方向，这与不可独占的资源情况形成对比，在不可独占资源的情况下，没有个体被排斥，占主导地位的个体对群体决策有很大贡献。我们的研究结果证明了共同决策在维持动物社会影响力平衡方面的作用。
