An information-theory approach to geometry for animal groups

One of the hardest problems in studying animal behaviour is to quantify patterns of social interaction at the group level. Recent technological developments in global positioning system (GPS) devices have opened up new avenues for locating animals with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inbioRxiv
Main Authors Dahl, Christoph D, Ferrando, Elodie, Zuberbuehler, Klaus
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 12.11.2019
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Edition1.1
Subjects
Animal behavior
Animal Behavior and Cognition
Geometry
Global positioning systems
GPS
Information theory
Mathematical models
Social interactions
kin relation
Siberian husky
Canis lupus familiaris
group decision
selfish herd
hierarchy
social intelligence
spatial cognition
dominance
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Summary:One of the hardest problems in studying animal behaviour is to quantify patterns of social interaction at the group level. Recent technological developments in global positioning system (GPS) devices have opened up new avenues for locating animals with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Likewise, advances in computing power have enabled new levels of data analyses with complex mathematical models to address unresolved problems in animal behaviour, such as the nature of group geometry and the impact of group-level interactions on individuals. Here, we present an information theory-based tool for the analysis of group behaviour. We illustrate its affordances with GPS data collected from a freely interacting pack of 15 Siberian huskies (Canis lupus familiaris). We found that individual freedom in movement decisions was limited to about 4%, while a subject's location could be predicted with 96% median accuracy by the locations of other group members, a pattern mediated by dominance, kin relations, sex, the relative time of the day and external events, such as feeding. We conclude that information theory-based approaches, coupled with state-of-the-art bio-logging technology, provide a powerful tool for future studies of animal social interactions beyond the dyadic level. Footnotes * https://github.com/ChristophDahl/Geometry-in-animal-groups
Bibliography:SourceType-Working Papers-1
ObjectType-Working Paper/Pre-Print-1
content type line 50
ISSN:2692-8205
2692-8205
DOI:10.1101/839548