Abstract
A challenge of group-living is to maintain cohesion while navigating through heterogeneous landscapes. Larger groups benefit from information pooling, translating to greater 'collective intelligence', but face increased coordination challenges. If these facets interact, we should observe a non-linear relationship between group size and collective movement. We deployed high-resolution GPS tags to vulturine guineafowl from 21 distinct social groups and used continuous-time movement models to characterize group movements across five seasons. Our data revealed a quadratic relationship between group size and movement characteristics, with intermediate-sized groups exhibiting the largest home-range size and greater variation in space use. Intermediate-sized groups also had higher reproductive success, but having more young in the group reduced home-range size. Our study suggests the presence of an optimal group size, and composition, for collective movement.
Highlights
Movement behaviour fundamentally influences how individuals encounter resources that are critical for their fitness
Fitting generalised estimating equations (GEEs) with the number of adults and the number of chicks as predictors revealed that home-range size was significantly predicted by group size and its quadratic term, but that this relationship was modulated by the presence of chicks
Our study shows that group size and composition can impact collective movement characteristics
Summary
Movement behaviour fundamentally influences how individuals encounter resources that are critical for their fitness. Coordination requires effectively deciding where and when to move (Conradt and Roper, 2005) as well as maintaining cohesion during movement (Gall and Manser, 2017). Both these factors could be shaped by intragroup characteristics. While the balance of benefits (such as decreased predation risk according to the ‘many eyes hypothesis’; Pulliam, 1973) and costs (increased intra-group competition over resources) associated with group size have been extensively explored (Krause and Ruxton, 2002), we still have very little information on whether group size translates to differences in movement behaviour and ranging patterns of naturally occurring groups
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