Costs and benefits of group living in primates: group size effects on behaviour and demography

By B. Majolo, Aurora De Bortoli Vizioli, G. Schino. 2008

199 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Socioecological models aim to predict the effect of environmental variables on species' ecology and social behaviour. Larger groups should face more within-group food competition than smaller groups but benefit from a reduction in predation pressure and/or between-group food competition. The balance between benefits and costs of living in larger groups may vary between populations and species. Moreover, sample size is usually relatively small in field studies and this increases variation in the results. We used meta-analytical techniques to analyse the effect of group size on behaviour and fitness in an attempt to measure the benefits and costs related to group size differences in primates. Meta-analysis allows the presence of an overall effect to be determined across different studies and taxa while controlling for sample size. We selected published papers from the PrimateLit database (http://primatelit.library.wisc.edu). Larger groups travelled further per day and spent more time feeding than smaller groups. Time spent on social behaviour and resting was not affected by group size differences. We found partial support for a decrease in female fecundity in larger groups whereas no significant difference was found for juvenile survival. These results were relatively unaffected by habitat characteristics, by species' ecology and social structure, and by indirect measures of predation risk. Our findings indicate that folivores and frugivores face similar ecological pressures and suggest that the costs of living in larger groups balance or outweigh the benefits.

Subfields: Developmental Biology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b92c579b485a5d0025bab1b1f293c1512ec90915

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In Developmental Biology

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

A comparative network analysis of social style in macaques (2011, background): “macaques might result from (1) this male seeking body contact with many subordinates to establish his dominance, or (2) subordinate individuals seeking contact with the top-ranking male to benefit from his tolerance and protection from others, and gain better access to food resources (Schino 2001; M”
Meta-analyses of whale-watching impact studies: Comparisons of cetacean responses to disturbance (2016, methodology): “This technique has been extensively used in animal ecology (Stanko - wich & Blumstein 2005, Nespolo & Franco 2007, Majolo et al. 2008) and was successfully applied to explore disturbance response of ungulates and anthro pogenic impacts on Antarctic wildlife (Stanko - wich 2008, Coetzee & Chown…”
Ecological and social factors affect the occurrence and outcomes of intergroup encounters in chimpanzees (2012, unknown): “Intergroup competition plays a prominent role in efforts to explain the evolution of social groups (e.g. Wrangham 1980; Macdonald 1983; Packer et al. 1990; Fashing 2001; Bowles 2006; Majolo et al. 2008; Mosser & Packer 2009).”