Animals within social groups respond to costs and benefits of sociality by adjusting the proportion of time they spend in close proximity to other individuals in the group (cohesion). Variation in cohesion between individuals, in turn, shapes important group‐level processes such as subgroup formation and fission–fusion dynamics. Although critical to animal sociality, a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing cohesion remains a gap in our knowledge of cooperative behavior in animals. We tracked 574 individuals from six species within the genus Canis in 15 countries on four continents with GPS telemetry to estimate the time that pairs of individuals within social groups spent in close proximity and test hypotheses regarding drivers of cohesion. Pairs of social canids (Canis spp.) varied widely in the proportion of time they spent together (5%–100%) during seasonal monitoring periods relative to both intrinsic characteristics and environmental conditions. The majority of our data came from three species of wolves (gray wolves, eastern wolves, and red wolves) and coyotes. For these species, cohesion within social groups was greatest between breeding pairs and varied seasonally as the nature of cooperative activities changed relative to annual life history patterns. Across species, wolves were more cohesive than coyotes. For wolves, pairs were less cohesive in larger groups, and when suitable, small prey was present reflecting the constraints of food resources and intragroup competition on social associations. Pair cohesion in wolves declined with increased anthropogenic modification of the landscape and greater climatic variability, underscoring challenges for conserving social top predators in a changing world. We show that pairwise cohesion in social groups varies strongly both within and across Canis species, as individuals respond to changing ecological context defined by resources, competition, and anthropogenic disturbance. Our work highlights that cohesion is a highly plastic component of animal sociality that holds significant promise for elucidating ecological and evolutionary mechanisms underlying cooperative behavior.

中文翻译：

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野生犬类群成对内聚的内在和环境驱动因素


社会群体中的动物通过调整它们与群体中其他个体近距离接触的时间比例（凝聚力）来响应社会性的成本和收益。个体之间凝聚力的变化反过来又塑造了重要的群体层面的过程，例如亚群的形成和裂变-聚变动力学。尽管对动物社会性至关重要，但对影响凝聚力的因素的全面理解仍然是我们对动物合作行为知识的空白。我们使用 GPS 遥测跟踪了四大洲 15 个国家的犬属 6 个物种的 574 个个体，以估计社会群体中成对个体近距离花费的时间，并检验有关凝聚力驱动因素的假设。相对于内在特征和环境条件，成对的社会犬科动物 （Canis spp.） 在季节性监测期间一起度过的时间比例 （5%-100%） 差异很大。我们的大部分数据来自三种狼（灰狼、东部狼和红狼）和郊狼。对于这些物种，繁殖对之间的社会群体内的凝聚力最大，并且随着合作活动的性质相对于年度生活史模式的变化而变化。在所有物种中，狼比郊狼更有凝聚力。对于狼来说，成对的狼在较大的群体中凝聚力较差，当合适时，会出现小型猎物，这反映了食物资源和群体内竞争对社会联系的限制。随着景观的人为改变程度增加和气候变异性增加，狼的配对凝聚力下降，这凸显了在不断变化的世界中保护社会顶级捕食者的挑战。 我们表明，犬科物种内部和犬科物种之间的社会群体的成对凝聚力差异很大，因为个体会对由资源、竞争和人为干扰定义的变化生态环境做出反应。我们的工作强调，凝聚力是动物社会性的高度可塑性组成部分，对于阐明合作行为背后的生态和进化机制具有重要前景。