scholarly journals Sneeze to leave: African wild dogs ( Lycaon pictus ) use variable quorum thresholds facilitated by sneezes in collective decisions

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1862) ◽  
pp. 20170347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reena H. Walker ◽  
Andrew J. King ◽  
J. Weldon McNutt ◽  
Neil R. Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Living ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Relative Strength ◽  
Directed Group ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
African Wild Dogs ◽  
Minimum Number ◽  
Collective Movements ◽  
Wild Dogs

In despotically driven animal societies, one or a few individuals tend to have a disproportionate influence on group decision-making and actions. However, global communication allows each group member to assess the relative strength of preferences for different options among their group-mates. Here, we investigate collective decisions by free-ranging African wild dog packs in Botswana. African wild dogs exhibit dominant-directed group living and take part in stereotyped social rallies: high energy greeting ceremonies that occur before collective movements. Not all rallies result in collective movements, for reasons that are not well understood. We show that the probability of rally success (i.e. group departure) is predicted by a minimum number of audible rapid nasal exhalations (sneezes), within the rally. Moreover, the number of sneezes needed for the group to depart (i.e. the quorum) was reduced whenever dominant individuals initiated rallies, suggesting that dominant participation increases the likelihood of a rally's success, but is not a prerequisite. As such, the ‘will of the group’ may override dominant preferences when the consensus of subordinates is sufficiently great. Our findings illustrate how specific behavioural mechanisms (here, sneezing) allow for negotiation (in effect, voting) that shapes decision-making in a wild, socially complex animal society.

scholarly journals The effect of boldness on decision-making in barnacle geese is group-size-dependent

2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1714) ◽  
pp. 2018-2024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf H. J. M. Kurvers ◽  
Vena M. A. P. Adamczyk ◽  
Sipke E. van Wieren ◽  
Herbert H. T. Prins
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Size Dependent ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Living Species ◽  
Barnacle Geese

In group-living species, decisions made by individuals may result in collective behaviours. A central question in understanding collective behaviours is how individual variation in phenotype affects collective behaviours. However, how the personality of individuals affects collective decisions in groups remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the role of boldness on the decision-making process in different-sized groups of barnacle geese. Naive barnacle geese, differing in boldness score, were introduced in a labyrinth in groups with either one or three informed demonstrators. The demonstrators possessed information about the route through the labyrinth. In pairs, the probability of choosing a route prior to the informed demonstrator increased with increasing boldness score: bolder individuals decided more often for themselves where to go compared with shyer individuals, whereas shyer individuals waited more often for the demonstrators to decide and followed this information. In groups of four individuals, however, there was no effect of boldness on decision-making, suggesting that individual differences were less important with increasing group size. Our experimental results show that personality is important in collective decisions in pairs of barnacle geese, and suggest that bolder individuals have a greater influence over the outcome of decisions in groups.

scholarly journals From the first intention movement to the last joiner: macaques combine mimetic rules to optimize their collective decisions

2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1712) ◽  
pp. 1697-1704 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Sueur ◽  
J. L. Deneubourg ◽  
O. Petit
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Complete Proof ◽  
Transition Mechanism ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Collective Movements ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Almost All

Mechanisms related to collective decision making have recently been found in almost all animal reigns from amoebae to worms, insects and vertebrates, including human beings. Decision-making mechanisms related to collective movements—including pre-departure and joining—have already been studied at different steps of the movement process, but these studies were always carried out separately. We therefore have no understanding of how these different processes are related when they underlie the same collective decision-making event. Here, we consider the whole departure process of two groups of Tonkean macaques ( Macaca tonkeana ), using a stochastic model. When several exclusive choices are proposed, macaques vote and choose the majority. Individuals then join the movement according to a mimetism based on affiliative relationships. The pre-departure quorum and the joining mimetic mechanism are probably linked, but we have not yet identified which transition mechanism is used. This study shows that decision-making related to macaque group movements is governed by a quorum rule combined with a selective mimetism at departure. This is the first time that transition mechanisms have been described in mammals, which consequently helps understand how a voting process leads to social amplification. Our study also provides the first complete proof that there is continuity in the decision-making processes underlying collective movements in mammals from the first intention movement right through to the last joiner.

scholarly journals Will Democracy Kill Democracy? Decision‐Making by Majorities and by Committees

1975 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Sartori
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Group ◽  
Directed Group ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Individual Decisions ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Number Of Individuals ◽  
Meaningful Sense

INDIVIDUAL DECISIONS ARE TAKEN BY EACH INDIVIDUAL FOR HIMSELF (regardless of whether he is inner- or other-directed). Group decisions imply that decisions are taken by a ‘concrete’ group, i.e. a face-to-face interacting number of individuals which may thus be said to share (partake) such decisions. Collective decisions are hardly amenable to a precise definition; but they are generally understood to mean decisions taken by the ‘many’. We then have collectivized decisions. Collective and collectivized decisions may be said to share the property of not being, in any meaningful sense, individual decisions. Even so, collectivized decisions are very different from all the others. Individual, group, and collective decisions all make reference to an actor, to who makes the decision. Collectivized decisions are, instead, decisions that apply to, and are enforced upon, a collectivity regardless of whether they are taken by the one, the few, or the many. The defining criterion no longer is who makes the decision, but its scope: whoever does the deciding decides or all.

scholarly journals Cultural influence of social information use in pedestrian road-crossing behaviours

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 160739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Pelé ◽  
Caroline Bellut ◽  
Elise Debergue ◽  
Charlotte Gauvin ◽  
Anne Jeanneret ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Red Light ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Information Use ◽  
The Road ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Road Crossing

Social information use is common in a wide range of group-living animals, notably in humans. The role it plays in decision-making could be a key to understanding how social groups make collective decisions. The observation of road-crossing behaviours in the presence of other individuals is an ideal means to study the influence of social information on decision-making. This study investigated the influence of culture on social information used by pedestrians in a potentially dangerous scenario, namely road crossing. We scored the collective crossing of pedestrians at four locations in Nagoya (Japan) and three locations in Strasbourg (France). French pedestrians cross against the lights much more often (41.9%) than Japanese ones (2.1%). Individuals deciding to cross the road were strongly influenced by the behaviour and the presence of other pedestrians, especially in Japan, where a stronger conformism was noted. However, Japanese pedestrians were half as likely to be influenced by social information as their French counterparts when crossing at the red light, as they were more respectful of rules. Men show riskier behaviour than women (40.6% versus 25.7% of rule-breaking, respectively), deciding quickly and setting off earlier than women. Further related studies could help target specific preventive, culture-specific solutions for pedestrian safety.

scholarly journals Heading for the Hills: Risk Avoidance Drives Den Site Selection in African Wild Dogs

PLoS ONE ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. e99686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig R. Jackson ◽  
R. John Power ◽  
Rosemary J. Groom ◽  
Emmanuel H. Masenga ◽  
Ernest E. Mjingo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Site Selection ◽  
Risk Avoidance ◽  
Den Site Selection ◽  
African Wild Dogs ◽  
Wild Dogs

scholarly journals Analytic slowing-down distributions as modified by turbulent transport

2018 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Wilkie
Keyword(s):  
Particle Density ◽  
Plasma Heating ◽  
Turbulent Transport ◽  
A Priori ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Relative Strength ◽  
Distribution Functions ◽  
Toroidal Plasmas ◽  
Model Distribution ◽  
Phase Space Transport

The effect of electrostatic microturbulence on fast particles rapidly decreases at high energy, but can be significant at moderate energy. Previous studies found that, in addition to changes in the energetic particle density, this results in non-trivial changes to the equilibrium velocity distribution. These effects have implications for plasma heating and the stability of Alfvén eigenmodes, but make multiscale simulations much more difficult without further approximations. Here, several related analytic model distribution functions are derived from first principles. A single dimensionless parameter characterizes the relative strength of turbulence relative to collisions, and this parameter appears as an exponent in the model distribution functions. Even the most simple of these models reproduces key features of the numerical phase-space transport solution and provides a useful a priori heuristic for determining how strong the effect of turbulence is on the redistribution of energetic particles in toroidal plasmas.

scholarly journals A Case Study Exploring the Use of Virtual Reality in the Zoo Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 576-588
Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Lugosi ◽  
Phyllis C. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Zoological Society ◽  
African Wild Dogs ◽  
Video Condition ◽  
Entertainment Value ◽  
Wild Dogs

Virtual Reality (VR) is now a popular tool in education and for engagement with the natural world, but to date little research has investigated its potential in a zoo setting. We aimed to gauge the interest of the visiting public in using VR technology at Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s (RZSS) Edinburgh Zoo. A VR (n = 12) and a video condition (n = 12), both introducing the lives and conservation concerns of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), were used to gain greater insight of the thoughts and perceptions of how individuals evaluated a purpose-built VR experience and to enable comparisons of learning outcomes for both technologies. We used semi-structured interviews; responses were evaluated through thematic analysis and descriptive analysis. Younger participants (aged 13-18 years) emphasized that VR allowed them close and personal access to the animals. Adult participants (aged 19 and above) pointed out the entertainment value of the VR experience while highlighting the potential of its educational aspect; that of enabling visitors to see animals in their natural habitat. While our results require further confirmation due to the limited sample size and restricted circumstances of data collection, we suggest that VR could be usefully introduced as a public education and visitor engagement tool that would benefit the visitors’ learning and overall experience at the zoo.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document