The emergence of unshared consensus decisions in bottlenose dolphins
By David Lusseau, L. Conradt. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2009
121 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Unshared consensus decision-making processes, in which one or a small number of individuals make the decision for the rest of a group, are rarely documented. However, this mechanism can be beneficial for all group members when one individual has greater knowledge about the benefits of the decision than other group members. Such decisions are reached during certain activity shifts within the population of bottlenose dolphins residing in Doubtful Sound, New Zealand. Behavioral signals are performed by one individual and seem to precipitate shifts in the behavior of the entire group: males perform side flops and initiate traveling bouts while females perform upside-down lobtails and terminate traveling bouts. However, these signals are not observed at all activity shifts. We find that, while side flops were performed by males that have greater knowledge than other male group members, this was not the case for females performing upside-down lobtails. The reason for this could have been that a generally high knowledge about the optimal timing of travel terminations rendered it less important which individual female made the decision.
Subfields: Developmental Biology, Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/40139c9389b8d2f6560b78fbcb8772ff3a5a5092
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In Developmental Biology
- J. Wiszniewski
- David Lusseau
- L. Möller
- Cédric Sueur
- Richard James
- Jens Krause
- Andrew J. King
- P. Thompson
In Ecology
- J. Wiszniewski
- David Lusseau
- Richard James
- Jens Krause
- L. Möller
- Cédric Sueur
- P. Thompson
- Gordon Hastie
In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Andrew J. King
- David Lusseau
- Richard James
- Cédric Sueur
- Jens Krause
- G. Cowlishaw
- J. Harwood
- J. Wiszniewski
Citations in the corpus
- Female bisexual kinship ties maintain social cohesion in a dolphin network (2010, background): “Such a mechanism can be explained solely from individual selection processes, population-level benefits essentially emerging from the sum of benefits for individuals (Lusseau & Conradt 2009).”
- Modelling the biological significance of behavioural change in coastal bottlenose dolphins in response to disturbance (2013, background): “The rate at which individuals interact can influence their behaviour (Lusseau & Conradt 2009).”
- All together now: behavioural synchrony in baboons. (2009, background): “Recent research further suggests that specific individuals may precipitate shifts in the activity of entire groups and coordinate their behaviour (King & Cowlishaw 2009b; King et al. 2009, in press; Lusseau & Conradt 2009 ).”
- Animal social networks: an introduction (2009, background): “ Lusseau and Conradt (2009) looked for evidence of “unshared consensus decisions” among bottlenose dolphins.”
- Where Next? Group Coordination and Collective Decision Making by Primates (2011, background): “Lusseau and Conradt (2009) subsequently showed that these central individuals appeared not only to have a greater knowledge about their environment, but also acted as leaders of group movements, precipitating shifts in the actions of group-mates using acrobatic side-flop displays.”