Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz , Konstanz 78457, Germany.
Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz , Konstanz 78457, Germany.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2024 Jul 8;379(1905):20230204. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0204. Epub 2024 May 20.
To receive the benefits of social living, individuals must make effective group decisions that enable them to achieve behavioural coordination and maintain cohesion. However, heterogeneity in the physical and social environments surrounding group decision-making contexts can increase the level of difficulty social organisms face in making decisions. Groups that live in variable physical environments (high ecological heterogeneity) can experience barriers to information transfer and increased levels of ecological uncertainty. In addition, in groups with large phenotypic variation (high individual heterogeneity), individuals can have substantial conflicts of interest regarding the timing and nature of activities, making it difficult for them to coordinate their behaviours or reach a consensus. In such cases, active communication can increase individuals' abilities to achieve coordination, such as by facilitating the transfer and aggregation of information about the environment or individual behavioural preferences. Here, we review the role of communication in vertebrate group decision-making and its relationship to heterogeneity in the ecological and social environment surrounding group decision-making contexts. We propose that complex communication has evolved to facilitate decision-making in specific socio-ecological contexts, and we provide a framework for studying this topic and testing related hypotheses as part of future research in this area. This article is part of the theme issue 'The power of sound: unravelling how acoustic communication shapes group dynamics'.
为了获得社交生活的好处，个体必须做出有效的群体决策，从而实现行为协调并保持凝聚力。然而，围绕群体决策背景的物理和社会环境的异质性会增加生物体做出决策的难度。生活在多变物理环境中的群体（高生态异质性）可能会面临信息传递的障碍，并增加生态不确定性的水平。此外，在表型变异较大的群体中（高个体异质性），个体在活动的时间和性质上可能存在重大利益冲突，这使得他们难以协调行为或达成共识。在这种情况下，积极的沟通可以提高个体实现协调的能力，例如促进有关环境或个体行为偏好的信息的传递和聚合。在这里，我们回顾了沟通在脊椎动物群体决策中的作用及其与群体决策背景的生态和社会环境异质性的关系。我们提出，复杂的沟通已经进化到可以在特定的社会生态环境中促进决策，并为研究这一主题提供了一个框架，并为未来该领域的研究提供了测试相关假设的途径。本文是主题为“声音的力量：揭示声音交流如何塑造群体动态”的一部分。
