Back to Search
Start Over
Survival Benefits of Group Living in a Fluctuating Environment
- Source :
- The American naturalist. 195(6)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Group living is predicted to arise only when the fitness benefits outweigh the costs of sociality. Group-living species-including cooperatively breeding and family-living birds and mammals-occur most frequently in environments where climatic conditions fluctuate unpredictably from year to year. The fitness consequences of group living are thus expected to vary with changing environmental conditions, though few studies have examined this possibility. We examined whether living in large social groups improves adult survivorship in cooperatively breeding superb starlings (Lamprotornis superbus). We also tested the hypothesis that larger groups buffer against harsh conditions by increasing survivorship most under periods of low rainfall. We found that group size was positively correlated with adult survival but in a sex-specific manner: female survival increased with group size across all environmental conditions, whereas male survival increased with group size only in wet years. Together with previous work in this system, our results suggest that larger groups confer survival benefits by reducing predation, rather than by improving access to food or buffering against physiological stress. Although group living does not appear to buffer against harsh conditions in adult starlings living in a fluctuating environment, living in larger groups does confer a survival advantage.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Male
Rain
Group living
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Predation
Nesting Behavior
Social group
03 medical and health sciences
Sex Factors
Survivorship curve
Lamprotornis
Survival advantage
Animals
Cooperative Behavior
Social Behavior
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Sociality
Physiological stress
Ecosystem
030304 developmental biology
0303 health sciences
biology
Behavior, Animal
Reproduction
biology.organism_classification
Starlings
Female
Demography
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15375323
- Volume :
- 195
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The American naturalist
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e6fd59c0f9d8da43f2bf631ea5cde1c9