Here, we investigate the collective decisions of African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus) packs in Botswana during the transition from a sedentary resting state to an active moving state. In social canids, research on group living has focused largely on the role of dominants in directing and repressing subdominant behaviour in group decision-making.

For example, dominance rank and/or an individual's social role (measured as social affiliation strength to others) are often found to correlate with leadership roles, a phenomenon observed pervasively in primates. Past research in meerkats, Suricata suricatta, for example, has found that a quorum of at least two and usually three meerkats emitting ‘moving calls’ are necessary for the whole group to move to a new foraging patch, and ‘piping signals’ in honeybees, Apis mellifera, and ‘trills’ in white faced capuchin monkeys, Cebus capucinus, are required for collective departures to occur.Ĭertain individuals can also have a disproportionate influence on collective behaviour decisions within social systems that exhibit variation in inter-individual relationships (e.g. This ensures that a minimum number of individuals (the actual quorum number) are ready to move off. Signals used by individuals in the pre-departure and foraging stage of group movement have been described across taxa and often operate in a type of quorum, where a specific signal has to reach a certain threshold before the group changes activity. One of the most obvious instances of group coordination in social animals is the decision to move off from a resting spot. Group consensus is ubiquitous in social invertebrate and vertebrate animals and is necessary for individuals to reap the benefits of group living-including added protection from predators, greater information sharing and better defence of resources. 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. As such, the ‘will of the group’ may override dominant preferences when the consensus of subordinates is sufficiently great.

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. Moreover, the number of sneezes needed for the group to depart (i.e. group departure) is predicted by a minimum number of audible rapid nasal exhalations (sneezes), within the rally. We show that the probability of rally success (i.e. Not all rallies result in collective movements, for reasons that are not well understood. African wild dogs exhibit dominant-directed group living and take part in stereotyped social rallies: high energy greeting ceremonies that occur before collective movements.

Here, we investigate collective decisions by free-ranging African wild dog packs in Botswana. However, global communication allows each group member to assess the relative strength of preferences for different options among their group-mates. In despotically driven animal societies, one or a few individuals tend to have a disproportionate influence on group decision-making and actions.

Wild dogs of africa