1 Citation 201 Views 14 Downloads
1. Dispersal is a key process governing the dynamics of socially and
spatially structured populations, and involves three distinct stages:
emigration, transience, and settlement. At each stage, individuals have to
make movement decisions, which are influenced by social, environmental,
and individual factors. Yet, a comprehensive understanding of the drivers
that influence such decisions is still lacking, particularly for the
transient stage during which free-living individuals are inherently
difficult to follow. 2. Social circumstances such as the likelihood of
encountering conspecifics can be expected to strongly affects decision
making during dispersal, particularly in territorial species where
encounters with resident conspecifics are antagonistic. Here we analyzed
the movement trajectories of 47 dispersing coalitions of Kalahari meerkats
(Suricata suricatta) through a landscape occupied by constantly monitored
resident groups, while simultaneously taking into account environmental
and individual characteristics. 3. We used GPS locations collected on
resident groups to create a geo-referenced social landscape representing
the likelihood of encountering resident groups. We used a step-selection
function to infer the effect of social, environmental and individual
covariates on habitat selection during dispersal. Lastly, we created a
temporal mismatch between the social landscape and the dispersal event of
interest to identify the temporal scale at which dispersers perceive the
social landscape. 4. Including information about the social landscape
considerably improved our representation of the dispersal trajectory,
compared to analyses that only accounted for environmental variables. The
latter were only marginally selected or avoided by dispersers. Before
leaving their natal territory, dispersers selected areas frequently used
by their natal group. In contrast, after leaving their natal territory,
they selectively used areas where they were less likely to encounter
unrelated groups. This pattern was particularly marked in larger
dispersing coalitions and when unrelated males were part of the dispersing
coalition. 5. Our results suggest that, in socially and spatially
structured species, dispersers gather and process social information
during dispersal, and that reducing risk of aggression from unrelated
resident groups outweighs benefits derived from conspecific attraction.
Finally, our work underlines the intimate lin...
201 views reported since publication in 2018.