Abstract
Group coordination, when ‘on the move’ or when visibility is low, is a challenge faced by many social living animals. While some animals manage to maintain cohesion solely through visual contact, the mechanism of group cohesion through other modes of communication, a necessity when visual contact is reduced, is not yet understood. Meerkats (Suricata suricatta), a small, social carnivore, forage as a cohesive group while moving continuously. While foraging, they frequently emit ‘close calls’, soft close-range contact calls. Variations in their call rates based on their local environment, coupled with individual movement, produce a dynamic acoustic landscape with a moving ‘vocal hotspot’ of the highest calling activity. We investigated whether meerkats follow such a vocal hotspot by playing back close calls of multiple individuals to foraging meerkats from the front and back edge of the group simultaneously. These two artificially induced vocal hotspots caused the group to spatially elongate and split into two subgroups. We conclude that meerkats use the emergent dynamic call pattern of the group to adjust their movement direction and maintain cohesion. Our study describes a highly flexible mechanism for the maintenance of group cohesion through vocal communication, for mobile species in habitats with low visibility and where movement decisions need to be adjusted continuously to changing environmental conditions.
Highlights
Members of cohesively foraging groups must stay within close range of their group mates [1,2] to achieve the benefits of group living
Most research has focused on changes in the vocal behaviour of individuals based on their relative spatial location to other group members [5,6,7,9], but has not addressed the specific mechanisms by which contact calls lead to group cohesion
We investigated whether foraging meerkats (Suricata suricatta) use the distribution of close calls in the group and follow in the direction of ‘vocal hotspots’, areas with many closely aggregated individuals calling at high rates [10], to maintain cohesion during movement
Summary
Members of cohesively foraging groups must stay within close range of their group mates [1,2] to achieve the benefits of group living. Animal groups in structured habitats, when the location of an individual is highly dynamic and visual 2 contact is limited. In these cases, other modalities of communication between individual group members become important to maintain group cohesion. Most research has focused on changes in the vocal behaviour of individuals based on their relative spatial location to other group members [5,6,7,9], but has not addressed the specific mechanisms by which contact calls lead to group cohesion. We investigated whether foraging meerkats (Suricata suricatta) use the distribution of close calls in the group (given by the number of individuals and their call rate at a specific location) and follow in the direction of ‘vocal hotspots’, areas with many closely aggregated individuals calling at high rates [10], to maintain cohesion during movement
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