» Articles » PMID: 36918036

Emergent Social Structure is Typically Not Associated with Survival in a Facultatively Social Mammal

Overview
Journal Biol Lett
Specialty Biology
Date 2023 Mar 14
PMID 36918036
Authors
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

For social animals, group social structure has important consequences for disease and information spread. While prior studies showed individual connectedness within a group has fitness consequences, less is known about the fitness consequences of group social structure for the individuals who comprise the group. Using a long-term dataset on a wild population of facultatively social yellow-bellied marmots (), we showed social structure had largely no relationship with survival, suggesting consequences of individual social phenotypes may not scale to the group social phenotype. An observed relationship for winter survival suggests a potentially contrasting direction of selection between the group and previous research on the individual level; less social individuals, but individuals in more social groups experience greater winter survival. This work provides valuable insights into evolutionary implications across social phenotypic scales.

Citing Articles

Social security: individuals in socially reciprocal groups may perceive security from predators.

Philson C, Klassen C, Uchida K, Blumstein D Behav Ecol. 2025; 36(2):araf008.

PMID: 40045989 PMC: 11880663. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/araf008.


Extending the social cohesion hypothesis: is group social structure associated with dispersal in yellow-bellied marmots ()?.

Schneidman S, Philson C, Blumstein D Curr Zool. 2024; 70(6):714-720.

PMID: 39678819 PMC: 11634677. DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoae002.


Differences in Gut Microbes Across Age and Sex Linked to Metabolism and Microbial Stability in a Hibernating Mammal.

Pfau M, Degregori S, Barber P, Blumstein D, Philson C Ecol Evol. 2024; 14(11):e70519.

PMID: 39524311 PMC: 11550910. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.70519.


Independent fitness consequences of group size variation in Verreaux's sifakas.

Kappeler P, Fichtel C Commun Biol. 2024; 7(1):816.

PMID: 38965399 PMC: 11224245. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-06484-z.


Social control is associated with increased reproductive skew in a wild mammal.

Maldonado-Chaparro A, Philson C, Zhang X, Blumstein D Biol Lett. 2024; 20(6):20240003.

PMID: 38835239 PMC: 11285479. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0003.


References
1.
Cameron E, Setsaas T, Linklater W . Social bonds between unrelated females increase reproductive success in feral horses. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009; 106(33):13850-3. PMC: 2728983. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0900639106. View

2.
Ilany A, Booms A, Holekamp K . Topological effects of network structure on long-term social network dynamics in a wild mammal. Ecol Lett. 2015; 18(7):687-95. PMC: 4486283. DOI: 10.1111/ele.12447. View

3.
Weinig C, Johnston J, Willis C, Maloof J . Antagonistic multilevel selection on size and architecture in variable density settings. Evolution. 2007; 61(1):58-67. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00005.x. View

4.
Cook P, Baker O, Costello R, Formica V, Brodie 3rd E . Group composition of individual personalities alters social network structure in experimental populations of forked fungus beetles. Biol Lett. 2022; 18(3):20210509. PMC: 8923822. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0509. View

5.
Stanton M, Mann J . Early social networks predict survival in wild bottlenose dolphins. PLoS One. 2012; 7(10):e47508. PMC: 3471847. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0047508. View