Abstract
Animal social groups are complex systems that are likely to exhibit tipping points—which are defined as drastic shifts in the dynamics of systems that arise from small changes in environmental conditions—yet this concept has not been carefully applied to these systems. Here, we summarize the concepts behind tipping points and describe instances in which they are likely to occur in animal societies. We also offer ways in which the study of social tipping points can open up new lines of inquiry in behavioural ecology and generate novel questions, methods, and approaches in animal behaviour and other fields, including community and ecosystem ecology. While some behaviours of living systems are hard to predict, we argue that probing tipping points across animal societies and across tiers of biological organization—populations, communities, ecosystems—may help to reveal principles that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Highlights
Many animals are social, and behaviours that occur within social groups can affect individuals, their immediate neighbours, and the overall performance of the society
We argue here that animal societies—like other kinds of living systems— can be subject to tipping points and that a better understanding of tipping point dynamics can help us to predict changes in sociality and behaviour
The insights gleaned from such studies have the potential to generate crosstalk between fields of ecology that typically operate independently
Summary
Behaviours that occur within social groups can affect individuals, their immediate neighbours, and the overall performance of the society. Tipping points are drastic shifts in the behaviour of systems as a result of small changes to the environment. In a social context, social tipping points occur when small changes to the physical or social environment result in qualitative changes to group behaviour or dynamics [10]. In animal societies, tipping points could be used to explain social transitions such as the onset of collective movements, shifts in group behaviour from calm to agitated states, the emergence and disappearance of wars between neighbouring societies, the formation or disbandment of cooperation, or the diffusion of new innovations. Small changes in population density can cause large and abrupt changes in both individual state and group dynamics in these locusts
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